Knowledge Area Module I: Principles of Societal Development

Student: Michael Moore Michael.Moore@waldenu.edu Program: PhD in Applied Management and Decision Sciences Specialization: Leadership and Organizational Change

KAM Assessor: Dr. Javier Fadul Javier.fadul@waldenu.edu Faculty Mentor: Dr. Javier Fadul Javier.fadul@waldenu.edu

Walden University February 5, 2011

ABSTRACT Breadth This Knowledge Area Module (KAM) broadens common knowledge of societal and cultural development by looking beyond economic and conflict theories for understanding other positions regarding social advancement. The Breadth Component studies societal and cultural development in terms of evolutionary, cyclical, and fundamentalist theories and demonstrates why it is important to looking beyond the popularly accepted knowledge about social development represented by economic and conflict theory. This approach provides a more robust generalization that more adequately describes social advancement, and concludes that classical researchers did not consider leadership as a social segment to be studied, that influences societal and cultural development. Leadership understanding of societal and cultural development is critical for enabling them to lead positive social change.

ABSTRACT Depth The Depth section compares modern research in societal and cultural development to the theories of classical researchers in order to further develop the findings of the classical study, and to determine if leadership consideration has been addressed in modern times. The study shows that the theories of classical researchers are sufficiently robust to support a consistent, continued basis for understanding societal and cultural development into modernity. This study broadens the Breadth section presentation, and demonstrates that modern researchers continue the classical paradigm, adding depth and granularity to that earlier research, but continue to ignore leadership as an influence over societal and cultural development, leading positive social change.

ABSTRACT Application The Application section of this KAM presents a research outline for a project to establish the beginning of a qualitative research into the importance of societal and cultural development to modern leadership and vice versa. While social science researchers have not addressed leadership as an influential social group over societal and cultural development, they also do not dismiss it. The Application research is intended to begin study that can grow into broad based research to determine the influence of leadership on societal and cultural development, as well as the importance of societal and cultural development to enabling leadership in leading society into positive social change.

TABLE OF CONTENTS BREADTH .................................................................................................................................1 The Theorists ..........................................................................................................................4 Herbert Spencer ...................................................................................................................7 Oswald Spengler .................................................................................................................8 Talcott Parsons .................................................................................................................. 10 The Theories ......................................................................................................................... 11 Evolutionary Theory.......................................................................................................... 11 Cyclical Theory ................................................................................................................. 16 Functionalist Theory.......................................................................................................... 18 How These Theories Apply ................................................................................................... 22 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 22 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 28 DEPTH ..................................................................................................................................... 33 Depth Annotations ................................................................................................................ 33 Literature Review Essay ........................................................................................................ 55 How Modern Theorists Address Classical Philosophers ........................................................ 58 Modern Theorists vs. Classical Theory .................................................................................. 70 APPLICATION ........................................................................................................................ 85 Introduction........................................................................................................................... 85 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................. 87 Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 87 Instrumentation ..................................................................................................................... 88 Leadership Assessment ...................................................................................................... 88 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 88 Population and Sample .................................................................................................. 89 Non-Leadership Assessment .............................................................................................. 90 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 90 Population and Sample .................................................................................................. 91 General Survey Characteristics .......................................................................................... 92 Survey Procedures ......................................................................................................... 92 Ethical Issues ................................................................................................................. 93 i

ii Validity and Reliability Issues ....................................................................................... 94 Data Collection .............................................................................................................. 95 Variables and Measures ................................................................................................. 95 Data Analysis Plan ........................................................................................................ 96 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 97 References ................................................................................................................................ 98

BREADTH SBSF 8110: THEORIES OF SOCIETAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT The Breadth component of Knowledge Area Module (KAM) 1 analyzes the works of Herbert Spencer (1882, 1972), Oswald Spengler (1956, 1967), and Talcott Parsons (1960, 1971) with regard to understanding the evolution of social systems and cultural development, and the impact these dynamics have had on leadership development and change issues in organizations that make up societies. These theorists’ major concepts add depth to the common understanding of evolution in today’s complex societies and to understanding the environments in which leadership behavior grows and develops. These authors represent social development concepts that are often obscured by the more recently popular conflict and economic theories. They represent entire disciplines that are equal too, and possibly more basic to understanding societal and cultural development, than conflict and economic theories suggest. Capitalism, communism, and socialism, the predominant theories commonly used to explain societal development throughout the twentieth century and into modern times, are “Conflict Theories” (Joseph, 2008). Conflict theories are only one type of several that have been used over the past two centuries to describe how societies and cultures form and grow. Joseph outlined several others, such as evolutionary, functionalistic, cyclic, symbolic interaction, complexity, and chaos theories, but these have not received the publicity and generality conflict theories have, in explaining how and why society and culture develop the way they do. Instead they are inclined to be presented as earlier stage or incidental theories that led to the definition of today’s more complex social structures.

2 Conflict theories were probably in the forefront because of the influence capitalism and communism had in the development of the two most dominant societies of the twentieth century, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic. These larger more complex industrial societies, represented by capitalism and communism, and particularly these two nations, controlling most of the wealth and development of the world during the second half of the 20th century, have commonly been used to describe societal growth and development, and at this point, seem to prevail as the views that explain societal development. There are many social development aspects that explain societal and cultural development beyond what was presented in the classical as well as the conflict and economic theories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These might include structures such as; social groups, business groups, governmental groups, economic systems, religious groups, political systems and groups, militarism, the military-industrial complex, nationalism, democracy, dictatorship, and many others of this ilk. These are not discussed here, because they will be addressed in a separate KAM. But within a more generalized understanding of social theory these are influential to societal and cultural development and should be recognized. These sorts of groups, working together or in conflict with each other, and within the more generalized concepts of social evolution, influence the direction of societal development, influence the direction of society and culture as they grow. The selected authors’ theories represent the evolutionary, cyclical, and functionalist theories of social development, respectively. They represent views of social development significantly different from the conflict or economics theories. The theories of the selected authors observed broader trends in social development. They are more about explaining

3 comprehensive causes of societal and cultural growth, hardly address conflict at all, and consider economic development to be only one part of the overall observation and then not necessarily a primary focus. By comparison conflict theories are inclined to be primarily focused on economics. Capitalism, communism, and socialism, are primarily about the accumulation and distribution of economic wealth. They are about either the institution or elimination of societal structure to affect the accumulation and utilization of wealth and capital resources more than they are about the interrelationships and social interactions that naturally occur in the general process of the continuation of society. Most societies are by nature, socialistic and tendencies toward extremes of capitalism or communism are at best, theoretical. Leaders grow within the societal and cultural boundaries imposed by the social orders within which they develop. Yet they seem to develop common behaviors, skills, and attributes that are similar regardless of their cultural background. The skills and behaviors of leaders might be considered universal in this sense. Regardless of whether the leader grew up under capitalism, communism, socialism, democracy, a dictatorship, or some other form of social order, they still use and exhibit for the most part, the same general strategies and tactics for obtaining cooperation and performance from followers. The principles and techniques of leadership are universal and seem to reoccur in the same way everywhere, even though the various social systems have very different heritages and structures. The capitalistic society where social growth is achieved by consensus building among independent individuals, groups, agencies, and organizations, recognizes, promotes, and rewards the demonstration of leadership achievements, in pretty much the same way as more centralized and bureaucratic organizations as in socialistic and communistic societies. The day-to-day practices of leadership are fundamentally the same

4 regardless of the society. This suggests that there are more basic and fundamental pressures present in cultural development that bring about the leadership function than tenets of the social order within which that leadership is practiced. The Theorists Herbert Spencer (1882, 1972), Oswald Spengler (1956, 1967), and Talcott Parsons (1960, 1971), were proponents of evolutionary, cyclic, and functionalist theories, respectively. In reality Parsons did not consider himself a part of the functionalist movement, but the academic body ranked him there as a founder or father of the theory. His tendency was to identify social behaviors and interactions and conduct statistical analysis to determine if the characteristic was a social behavior underlying a method of social development. These theories represented generalized, comprehensive statements about societal growth and development and studied social development on a broader perspective than just social conflict and economics. They were selected for that reason. While conflict and economic theories are adequate descriptors for some social and cultural development, they are limited in how they explain societal advancement. The same is true for the other general theories of sociology, but conflict and economic theories in particular, have received more attention and visibility due to the socio-political environment throughout the twentieth century. What is truer is that all of these theories, including those not discussed in this KAM, taken in concert, explain complex processes of sociological and cultural development that goes beyond what any one theoretical discussion can deliver. Evolutionary theories proposed that societal and cultural development were a function of an evolutionary process, much like inorganic evolution fostered growth and development of the

5 universe, the solar system, and the Earth, as well as the continuing evolution of plant, animal, and ultimately social life. Cyclic theories proposed that societal and cultural development were a function of a cyclical process, much like the life cycle process used to explain organic or economic life cycles, where societies grew, developed, matured and declined over time with subsequent societies being an outcome of the decline of a preceding society. Functional theory suggested that societal and cultural development occurred as a result of events, activities, organizational and social functions, that occurred within society while it exists. Growth and development are functions of social and cultural interactions occurring between individuals and groups within society, influencing the general understanding of its members, resulting in a generalized societal understanding or paradigm (Joseph, 2008). Throughout the early twentieth century conflict theories were at the forefront of sociological thinking, because of their visibility in explaining growth and development of the two largest political and economic expansions; capitalism in the United States and communism in the Soviet Union. These two societies were influential in spreading their respective versions of social systems throughout the rest of the world and have impacted world order significantly. Each established a following throughout the world that gave credence to their respective forms of social order. While the United States and Soviet Union were influenced by capitalism and communism respectively, their influence beyond their own borders is as much of a political and economic influence as it is ideological. Social influence outside of these two systems under the guise of communism has been more influenced by the leadership paradigm of the dictatorship with centralized power and authority and social subservience to the state. Under the capitalistic

6 system the leadership paradigm has had more of a laissez-faire mindset with limited central control and decentralized political and business opportunism controlling societal growth. In truth, both societies are more socialistic than capitalistic or communistic. Both are driven more by a desire to institute social systems that are generally protective and supportive of the general population by redistributing wealth and providing for the general societal well being, albeit each having their own definition of how general societal well being is defined. Because the United States did this as a republican democracy, the politics of free elections and a representative government have prevailed in spreading the United States form of capitalism to other societies. Because the Soviet Union assimilated communism into a dictatorship, with centralized dictatorial rule and state’s rights trumping individual rights, the political system promoted the USSR form of communism into the rest of the world. As a device, each of these societies has been described as capitalistic or communistic respectively. However, both societies are in reality, more socialistic than either of those extremes. The significant difference between the United States and Soviet Union has actually been their political systems, where the United States operates under a two political party system of republican representation of the general populace through an elected body of representatives and an elected executive leadership, with decentralized administration and governance, with private capital financing controlled by the government for economic activity. The Soviet Union has on the other hand operated as a one political party system where the party represents the people through a body of representatives that while elected, is elected by the party membership as opposed to the general populace, and has an appointed executive leadership that assumes dictatorial power through centralized management of the bureaucracy of government including

7 centralized control of the economy. But the political system is only one of many systems involved in the growth and development of a society. Other social systems include businesses, economic, industrial, religious, military, the military-industrial complex, a separate professional government bureaucracy, education, significant social groups such as major religious orders, political parties, dissident groups, and others. Each of these systems operates somewhat autonomously while at the same time working in concert with each other, to make up the total fabric of a society. Societal and cultural evolution and change are the result of the actions and interactions of all of these systems and groups. Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (1882, 1972) was an English philosopher who lived and worked around the same time as Charles Darwin, and was a contemporary forerunner to Darwin’s theories in natural selection. Spencer was recognized for his proposed concept of evolutionary societal development, by suggesting that societies evolve much in the same way as natural evolution occurs. His theories on social evolution would later become known as Social Darwinism and he is credited with coining the term “survival of the fittest.” In addition to sociology, Spencer studied and was considered as much of an authority in the fields of philosophy, politics, economics, biology, ethics, religion, and psychology. He was known as the leading authority in these areas during his lifetime. (Gray, 1998) Spencer (1882, 1972) advocated the decline of the “State” in earlier writings, believing that society would mature to a level where State organization was no longer necessary. He believed that the State was at best, a necessary evil that existed only to protect individual rights from violation. His background included having come from a nonconformist family that believed

8 in free-trade and anti-state politics. As a young man his peers and circle of friends included John Stuart Mill, Harriet Martineau, George Henry Lewes, Thomas Huxley, and Mary Ann Evans (a. k. a. George Eliot), all known anti-societal voices. He was one of the modern thinkers and radical theorists of his era. His later thinking admittedly regressed from strong opposition to state led development, but did not change, he merely did not emphasize his earlier positions anymore. Spencer’s (1882) theory on psychology presumed that the human mind is subject to natural laws and its development could be predicted within the framework of general biological development. By extension this remained true for the development of the human species. He believed that everything in the universe, including human culture, language, and morality, could be explained by universal law. He developed a “System of Synthetic Philosophy” and believed that a single law of universal application, called “the principle of evolution,” could explain all psychological and sociological development. Spencer was the most widely read and famous philosopher of his day. However, his popularity waned later in life due to his stance on imperialism and militarism, both of which he strongly opposed. Oswald Spengler Oswald Spengler (1956, 1967), was a German philosopher in early 20th Century Germany. His work occurred after that of Spencer (1882) and after Karl Marx, the most commonly known proponent of conflict theories. Spengler was the best known proponent of cyclical theories of social development. While he did study other cultures, his experiential exposure was almost exclusively to the development of Prussia and Germany and his focus was on the sociological and cultural development of Germany. We will see later that the societal development of middle Europe, which is by definition the Germany and particularly Prussia, was

9 different from that of Great Britain. Spengler was best known for writing The Decline of the West, a two volume set, where he described a cyclical theory for the rise and fall of civilizations. (Dray, 1967) Spengler (1956, 1967) experienced a great degree of fame and acceptance at the end of the First World War and during the period between the two World Wars, because his book, the first volume of which was published in 1918 and the second in 1920, presented an explanation of social development theory that seemed to uniquely fit the circumstances of the German state at that time. His view on cyclical societal development seemed to explain the then current circumstance where Germany found itself as the war ended. This recognition however, was short lived. Some academics had mixed reviews for Spengler’s work, with many finding it unscientific and difficult to read. Others dismissed it as being amateurish and meaningless, the work of an untrained author. Still others found the work significant because the books supported work that eventually became part of the foundational support of cyclical theory in sociology. Spengler (1956) argued that socialism, different from Marxism, would be compatible with German culture. In the late 1920’s he entered politics but found himself unsuited to that field. He was not in favor of the rise of Hitler on grounds that Germany did not need that sort of leadership. He also disagreed with the Nazi positions on biological ideology and racial theory. After World War II Spengler’s work was discounted due to his political positions before the war and he sank into relative obscurity, but has recently seen a revival in modern theory. The fact is that his work was thoughtful and regardless of his politics, his theories were influential in the broader sense of social development.

10 Talcott Parsons Talcott Parsons (1960, 1971) was an American sociologist at Harvard University from 1927 to 1973. He came from a family that had been in America since the early 17th century. His father was an educator and officer at Colorado College. Parsons’ work came into prominence after World War II. During the events of the Great Depression and World War II, the general understanding about social and cultural development was considered fundamentally changed. Sociological theory was fragmented with many different approaches to development competing for attention and gaining recognition. After World War II the social stability, institutional power, and ideological hegemony of the United States enabled American sociological ideologies to predominate over others. Modern post-war sociology is thought to have begun with publication of Parsons’ The Structure of Social Action. In the geopolitical realignment that occurred after World War II sociological and intellectual influencers were fundamentally changed. In this new environment Parsons’ work emerged as the dominant theory of his time. Post war sociologists considered his work to be a fundamental foundation of modern sociological theory, called structural-functionalism. Parsons’ approach was to establish organizational models of society. He worked “to describe the institutional, psychological, and cultural foundations of differentiated and pluralistic societies that could process economic, political, religious, and ethnic conflicts in democratic, fundamentally cooperative ways.” (Turner and Holton as cited in Alexander, 1998). Parsons’ (1960, 1971) work was based on voluntarism and empirical research, following the work of Durkheim, Pareto, and Weber. He did not consider his work functionalist, but his theories have been classified there, as were Durkheim’s. Parsons was considered, along with Weber and Marx, a principal architect of modern social science. Parsons also studied the

11 philosophy of Immanuel Kant and was an advocate of Kantian philosophy. As a result of Parsons’ work, the post-war research direction went more toward empirical research than it had in the past. Theories were based more on derivations from statistical findings studying social development through a scientific method than through the hermeneutical or pre-suppositional techniques that had been used by earlier researchers. This methodology remained predominant into the 1960’s and 1970’s, where social upheaval led other theorists to question the techniques. At that point many sociologists reverted to other theories or developed new ones. Many went back to the pre-suppositional and hermeneutical methods to explain development. The important fact is that the prominence of Parsons’ methods waned and a broader, more complex paradigm in defining societal and cultural development came into wider use. The Theories Evolutionary Theory The essence of Evolutionary Theory is that societal and cultural development evolves using the same techniques of natural selection as described by Charles Darwin in his seminal work; On the Origin of Species. Herbert Spencer (1882, 1972) was impressed with the logic of Darwin and used it to frame his theories on social development. But his realization of this concept was more than just an epiphany that came as a result of reading and knowing Darwin, it was an independent development realized over time as he studied sociological development. Darwin’s contribution was more a framework that Spencer used to help explain his concept of social evolution. Spencer (1882) was also a positivist, believing that a scientific approach could explain the phenomenon of sociological development. He defined a society as merely a collection of

12 individuals, an aggregate of people with an implied shared relationship. It is a thing, an entity with a “parallelism of principle in the arrangement of component.” A society is like an organism in that it has complex differentiated parts that interact with each other and act out together. It also has characteristics that carry on as non-differentiated. Spencer (1882) likened societal growth to organic growth. Societies originate from undifferentiated masses that assemble together and eventually grow into some cohesive form of social organization. Their early development is much like a collection of forms without distinction or differentiation. These forms eventually differentiate through a process of organic, and then super-organic growth, into various specializations until there are unique participants and contributors. Social growth increases and formalizes structure. This growth is accompanied by specialization, integration, and differentiation. As growth continues it includes a progression of changes in various functions within the society. Much like the organism grows, society differentiates into a system of interrelated and interdependent organs that make up the whole. An important part of this development includes sustenance and distribution systems that take input and interaction and distributes the results, including conversions of inputs to usable formats, to elements where needed for consumption. In order for this to work effectively the society develops regulating systems that keep the differentiated units balanced, disciplined and harmoniously working together. Spencer (1882) developed a history of social development beginning with the concept that at one point there was no society, no interaction, no social order because there were no complex organisms such as people in existence. Over the millennia, since the beginning of evolution of people, society grew in certain ways and social development occurred as a result of

13 the nature of people as they developed over time. His premise was that sociological development progresses in the same manner as biological, geophysical, and geological development. There exists a logical order that is followed and a growth from simplicity to ever increasing complexity and diversity. Sociology is part of what Spencer referred to as the third form of evolution, the super-organic evolution. His first form included non-organic evolution, which he referred to as Astrogeny and Geogeny. These were the evolution of the Cosmos, the Universe and all it contained. It included the geological evolution of the non-organic world. His premise was that these evolutions occurred prior to any other evolutions. The second evolution was the organic evolution, which is the development of living aggregates, plant and animal, and the physical growth and development of these phenomena into the diversity they represent. This was the study of the growth, maturity, and decay of the various organic species. In studying the progression of super-organic evolution it became apparent that the affects of interaction within a species contributed to the complexity of their responses and behavior in that interaction. Some species were more social or communal than others and exhibited this by developing more complex patterns of communication and cooperation. Others were not as social, and their development was not as socially organized. Spencer (1882) believed that the behavior of any object depended upon the cooperation between its forces and the forces of others. This was true whether animate or inanimate, or of a lower or higher order. Thus the behavior of man is dependent upon his interaction with other men, with other species, as well as with the inanimate. The origin of man went back to early prehistoric time, which obscured the early development of the species. However there were certain qualities that could be accepted to have had bearing. For example, most organisms could

14 not have existed or were severely limited in places where extreme temperature, moisture, or lack of light occurred. This placed the original development of man’s earliest ancestors more or less in a temperate zone, at least until they developed the technology (e.g. clothing) to exist in more extreme climates. By demonstration Spencer pointed out that human civilization had never thrived in extremely hot and dry or wet locations, such as found in central Africa, Central Asia, or central North or South America. The climate is too harsh to foster the kind of social interaction needed to build societies. Spencer (1882) pointed out that the humans are social animals. The species’ development included aspects based on and rooted in the fact that humans needed to gather in social groups and interact. This interaction led to political power being exercised within the group. Physical characteristics, although not proven, might determine the power of a particular tribe or subspecies, for example Pygmies and Bushmen, Patagonians, or Zulus. Psychological characteristics tended to adjust according to outer characteristics. Spencer discussed relative development of various human races and noted that the more primitive peoples, for example the Australian bushmen, the Indigenes of India, the Native Americans, hill-tribe peoples, among others, were not as well developed physically, emotionally, or intellectually with the exception of those characteristics needed for primitive survival. When speaking physically; while some peoples were larger than average, most were smaller and in some cases much smaller in stature than those who were members of more advanced societies. Particularly noticeable is that they were more constitutionally fragile, somewhat incapable of heavier work, and more prone to disease and earlier demise. Emotionally they would have been considered lazy and incapable of helping themselves by standards of more advanced societies. When out of their social element they

15 tended to wane and disappear over time. Intellectually primitive man’s responses were direct and not given to higher thought with varied potential ideas for response to stimulus. There is an analogy between progress in bodily nutrition and mental nutrition. The higher order mind is more likely to select more beneficial nutrition; so the superior intellect is more capable of passing over the meaningless and observing the significant facts that lead to understanding cardinal truth. The less developed intellect is incapable of assembling complex truths into meaningful or useful understanding. Spencer (1882) recognized that man’s development was generalized through an evolutionary process, he theorized that through the method described above that over time more advanced intellects have been able to give form and meaning to such concepts as animate vs. inanimate, sleep and dreams, emotional deviance or illness, death and resurrection, ideas of souls, ghosts, spirits, and demons, ideas of another life, another world, supernatural agents, supernatural agents causing illness, emotional instability, death, ideas of inspiration, divination, exorcism, sorcery, sacred places, temples and altars, sacrifice, fasting, ideas of divinity and propitiation, praise, prayer, ancestor-worship, idol and fetish worship, animal worship, plant worship, nature worship, deities, and theories of things. Within the development of sociology there are stages or phases that humanity has gone through that present a linear growth of learning experiences or limitations for understanding as humanity had developed over time. When discussing primitive man, Spencer (1882) presented a position that these people had limited abilities and were somehow less developed than western man. Factors and limitations in physical, emotional, and intellectual development, a limited scope in their environment, as well as their ability to see beyond their paradigm, led to their being less developed

16 sociologically. For example, primitive man was inclined to be highly defensive when confronted. This came as a result of his limited understanding and fear of the unknown. Consequently his society became structured by fear of living individuals in the form of politics, and of deceased individuals in the form of the unknown as symbolized by the dead. He became controlled by these fears to the degree that his first reaction would be to act defensively so as not to offend and thereby foster confrontations that might even include death. Cyclical Theory The essence of Cyclical Theory is that societal and cultural development goes through a life cycle, much like the life cycle of a business, or the cycle of the seasons, or the life cycle of an organism. Oswald Spengler (1956, 1967) suggested that each society began out of the decline of a preceding society. It then grew through a period of agronomy and informal social organization while developing ever more complex and formal social structures. The culture eventually grew into an association of people and institutions of common cause, then into an organization like an industrial megalopolis with ever more complex and rigid social systems. These systems eventually became unwieldy and relatively non-productive driving the society into decline. Eventually the systems and social structures failed and the society declined to a point of non-function. It collapses. At that point new factions emerged, that were anti-social in terms of the old society, they broke away and a new society formed around them. This entire cycle typically occurred over a period of 1,000 to 1,200 years. Spengler (1956) proposed that each society evolved independently from any other societies. Each society developed a unique language, social structure, and “Prime Symbol” that prevented it from adopting, or for that matter understanding, the Prime Symbol of its predecessor

17 or any other society. Each society is a cultural cycle unto itself that is born, grows, lives, declines, and dies. A Prime Symbol is a set of understandings, characteristics, and absolutes that are uniquely understood as definitive within the society. For example, mathematics is a part of a Prime Symbol. A society cannot understand mathematics as an earlier or different society did, because the language of expression and symbols used to display mathematics have different meaning, indiscernible within the new society. Societies are never able to grasp one another’s Prime Symbol because of these sorts of barriers. Mathematics is but one example of the components of a Prime Symbol. It can include such abstracts as language, social behaviors, understanding, expressions, customs, economics, symbolism, religion, and real characteristics such as symbols of money as the instruments of money, record keeping, structures such as buildings, environmental arrangements and manipulations, tools, transportation, career definitions and deliverables, Spengler proposed that each society was born, grew, matured, and declined in complete independence of influence from any other society. All learning, all structure, all passage through the life cycle of the society happened in isolation. Spengler’s position on social evolution is that it does not exist beyond the concept of the life cycle (Dray, 1967). He advocated that history did not hold humanity as the center of development. History is without a center or ultimate point of reference. The culture of Western Europe became seen as only one of many cultures to have grown and declined in history, that “[grew] with the same aimlessness as flowers in the field.” According to Spengler, the meaning of culture is of consequence only in relation to history as a “pocket of unconnected significance in a wilderness of human life, most of which is historyless”.

18 Spengler’s (1970) theory frequently related the aging of the cultural life cycle to seasonal change, equating spring with the early rural and agricultural phase of social growth, summer with the growth of towns, an aristocracy, artistic ability, autumn with the maturity of spiritual resources, growth of cities, spreading commerce, centralized monarchies, with religion being challenged by philosophy and enlightenment, and early warning signals of decline, and winter characterized by the appearance of the megalopolis, a rootless proletariat, plutocracy, esoteric art, and growing skepticism and materialism. Winter is also an age of imperialism and increasing warfare, and political warfare as political figures strive for world domination and empire. Functionalist Theory The essence of Functionalist theory is that societal and cultural development occurs as a function of the interrelated activities that elements of the system undergo during its existence. A society is a collection of interrelated systems and organizations that strive for balance in and between their respective contributions to maintain society as a whole, in a state of relative equilibrium (Walden University. 2008, April). Parsons (1960) defined society as a social system able to continue self-sufficiently but interactively, relative to its total environment. It is a collective of organizations such as bureaucratic collectives, government agencies, large business firms, universities, hospitals, among others. Within this collective, interactivity occurs in the form of events and relationships that establish shared goals and responsibility. Orientation toward specific goals is a defining characteristic of a society and an organization. An organization is defined as having a describable structure. The analysis of the interactivity, goals, and interrelated activities drives out a definition of the society.

19 Parsons (1971) showed that social systems are one of four subsystems of the action systems that made up the functional model of interaction and gave a society its identity. The other subsystems included cultural systems, personality systems, and behavioral organisms. Society can also be viewed in four primary subsystems which are societal community, pattern maintenance or fiduciary, polity, and economy. The core of a society is the societal community, or social system. This community defined loyalty and established norms to the societal collective. Pattern maintenance was the function of the cultural system. Personality systems contributed to and helped focus the adaptive capacity of the social system. The behavioral organism is the adaptive subsystem where those interactive facilities that underlie the other systems were contained. The main point for analyzing any social system was its value pattern. The value pattern defined the basic orientation of the system in relation to the environment in which it operated. There are two conclusions that can be made about an organization; first, the value system must imply acceptance of the values of the broader system of which the organization is part, and second, is the evaluative legitimization of its place or role in the higher order system. Functionalism involved large scale quantitative empirical studies and a high degree of interdisciplinary relationship with such fields as literature, philosophy, history, politics, and anthropology, among others. Those other areas of study tended to rely on sociology, due to its grounding in empirical studies, for validation of their own theories and findings. Functionalism includes Kantianism, a theory that action occurs in accordance with principle, and that this principle stands as a moral value against which the action can be judged. It also includes

20 Positivism, the concept that the only knowledge that counts is that which is based on actual sensory experience. In essence this applied a scientific method to sociological study. Parsons (1971) applied systems theory to his studies with a positivistic approach. He studied the evolution of modern society, effectively beginning with the breakdown of the Roman Empire into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires then subsequently through the evolution of the dark ages, the renaissance, and into modernity. His primary focus was on the West, although he recognized that the evolution of the East was intricately involved in driving Western Evolution because of their respective proximity and interrelationship. Western society, which meant the societal organization of Northwestern Europe, was derived from the Western Roman Empire. The direction of growth was influenced by the political and social activity that occurred particularly during the Renaissance, but also during feudal times. The strongest influences occurred in the English and French societies where social circumstances led to nonconforming behavior, revolutions, republicanism, democracies, and representative governments. Parson’s (1971) analysis suggested that the decline of the Roman Empire led to a collapse of social order. This collapse fell into feudalism where social order revolved around tribalism and familial leadership. This in turn, grew into the concept of the City-State, led by a nobility that inherited their leadership positions. During the Renaissance, as feudal City-States grew and consolidated, the concept of Nationalism grew into the States and Empires that are familiar today, such as the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom, France, Prussia, and Russia. Parsons (1971) noted that German and Prussian societies developed in parallel with and are considered part of Western society. However, these societies were more influenced by

21 Eastern societal development. They did not participate in the Age of Revolution and were considered Counter Reformation, tending to have frozen their processes of differentiation because of the relationship between their political systems and the Roman Church. Their heritage grew from the Austrian Empire, which was in turn; influenced by the Church, by the Austrian relationship with the Spanish Empire, and by interactivity with the Ottoman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire had evolved into the Ottoman Empire and Russia. These cultures were socially very different and this is reflected in German culture. Additionally, Prussian society’s penchant for structure, organization and regimentation was contrary to the direction that Northwestern Societies had taken. As the United Kingdom was growing a paradigm of freedom of thought, allowance for dissention and nonconformist behavior, Prussian society advocated disciplined submission to the central authority and stricter regimentation of the society as a whole. This Prussian paradigm, coupled with the fact that Germans were closer to Prussia than they were to Northwestern European cultures, influenced the German paradigm. The evolution of these societies was demonstrated by their respective relationships between their organizational structures and their members. By tracing the interrelationships between the consecutive social structures that evolved through the feudal period and renaissance, Parsons (1971) is able to explain where the social values of each modern society come from. Each of these value systems are the accepted patterns of their respective cultures. Parsons analysis demonstrates where each modern society gets their respective values and how these values integrate into their respective social orders as the inheritance of that particular cultural order. He goes on to demonstrate this inheritance in extensive detail, including the net effect it has had on various aspects of social behaviors in Western societies.

22 How These Theories Apply Summary A shortcoming noted in reviewing each of these theorists is their common tendency to interpret societal and cultural development as an exclusive controlling paradigm for explaining societal and cultural development. They did not consider other theories as potentially possible or simultaneously operating in parallel with their own. Spencer (1882) professed that societal and cultural development is an evolutionary process that started in prehistoric times and has been a continuous linear development into modernity. While his observations are the earliest of the three authors, he did not recognize a potential for a cyclical theory or for functionalism. Spengler (1966-70) detailed a cyclical process as essentially a closed system. He did not give credence to what by then was well known as evolutionary theory. He was explicit in saying that as one society grows, matures, declines, and dies, it makes way for a new society but that new society does not learn from its predecessor or any other society. This is the premise of the Prime Symbol at work. He attributed the new society’s inability to grasp any other society’s Prime Symbol to an inability to understand or interpret the meaning of another society’s Prime Symbol, including those of their own ancestor, societies. An apparent difficulty in reviewing these theories is the inability of the authors to set aside personal bias. As these authors presented their theories, the assumption that the so-called first world countries, the industrial west, including Western Europe and the United States, were somehow superior to the other cultures of the world. While there are aspects of development, particularly technological development, that are may be considered advanced in the industrial west, that does not make them necessarily more advanced cultures than other peoples, it only

23 makes them different. In fact there are equally strong arguments against the relative advanced nature of the industrial west, for example; the destruction of the artifacts and thereby the history of other cultures in order to impose western civilization on those other cultures, or ignorance of other cultural value systems and the assumption that western values are right and any others are wrong, are two examples of this. Westerners tend to consider that cultures that have not adopted the western concepts of socialization, organization, religion, politics, economics, and competition as somehow more primitive. Those cultures identified as “Third World” include two (Chinese and Indian) that are among the oldest and most culturally developed in the world. The two largest nations in the world by population, (again, China and India) are considered third world countries. Of the 10 largest countries in the world, seven are considered third world, and one, while not considered a third world country, is not part of the industrialized west. The hardest thing for anyone to do is to rise above their own cultural biases and assume a totally neutral perspective. It is clear that these three authors, while attempting to do so, were unable. For example; Spencer (1970) assumed that because the general size of people in a more primitive culture was smaller, smaller people are by definition, more primitive. He also assumed that because primitive people were not given to higher order thought, they were not capable of higher order thinking. Spengler (1966-70) assumed that because Russians were descended from Eastern culture they were less organized and disciplined than Prussians. Spencer’s (1970) comparison of social growth, development, and differentiation of a society to the growth and development of an individual organism creates an interesting abstraction but is only vaguely relevant. It serves as an interesting device to help explain social

24 evolution, but misses a lot in terms of the effects of social interactivity among the groups and organizations. It does not address growth and decline of societies as Spengler (1966-70) does. It does not adequately address the development of social groups within a society, their interactivity, and how they impact overall social development, as Parsons does. Spencer’s (1970) theory did not recognize that much social interactivity occurs out of conflict and social growth is an outcome of the resolution of that conflict. Social organizations are dynamically growing and receding, shifting and adjusting to current relationships, environments, and other forces. Growth and decline happens independently when compared to the growth, continuation, and development of society as a whole. Social elements are not static elements of society that exist as a harmonious part of the whole. They are not even a predefined component of society, like a component of an organism would be. Their inception, growth, development, and decline does not parallel the growth, development, and decline of an organism. Things change and societies change with them. Social groups, and thus structure, within the society may come and go, gain or lose power, and otherwise have their relationship within the society change. The evolutionary process in an organism does not follow this model. The components of the organism are set, and slowly evolve over millennia. Social organizations can change overnight. Changes in social organizations can happen momentarily, adjust into another structure, or cease to exist just as quickly. An organism is a system of component parts that work together harmoniously to sustain the existence of the organism. A society is a system of component parts than may come and go, cooperate or dissent and resist, negotiate and manipulate, the whole for the benefit of the component part.

25 The underlying assumption Spencer (1970) made comparing social maturation elements to internal organ maturation, then to their slow decay, is fundamentally flawed. Societal subgroups continuously evolve. When they devolve it can happen quickly. They also tend to morph into different organizations and structures. They might merge, consolidate, or break up into multiple entities. These things occur constantly at all stages of social growth and decline, and subgroups of society are continuously shifting, evolving, changing, more like a tidal ebb and flow, or the wave action of mixing and breaking apart, than like organic evolution. Societal change is very fluid, plastic and nebulous. Groups or organizations within a society will have their own life cycle unrelated to the societal life cycle. They materialize, grow, mature, decline, and die or morph into something different without necessarily being influenced by the societal life cycle at all. It is possible to understand how someone studying social evolution in the 19th and early 20th Centuries might consider social growth in comparison to organic growth, a fair comparison. The growth and development of societies in those days was much slower and more evolutionary than it is today. A Shift toward the way social interaction works, the increase in communication speed, the increase in transportation growth, speed, and efficiency, particularly in international and intercultural transportation, the relative open mindedness with less cultural discrimination than in the past, has led to a significantly faster social change turnover and more objective acceptance of social differences than priorly existed. While Spengler’s position on the cyclical nature of a single society may have been an appropriate description, his position that societies exist in isolation and that social evolution does not exist beyond the concept of the unique life cycle of a single society is not true. Even his

26 examples, given in describing the birth of a new society, where a society grows out of an earlier society’s decline and death, suggested that learning, inheritance, and knowledge transference from one society to the next, happens. Spengler said that in a normal transition from a dying society to a new society, the transition is fomented by the earlier society nonconforming members breaking away and forming the new. These individuals, while nonconforming to the old society in such strength that they feel compelled to break away and sponsor a new societal approach, will bring much of the old Prime Symbol with them. They may have been driven out by the old society’s inability to meet certain needs, but that does not mean that the old society did not meet all of life requirements. Those values and social behaviors that were acceptable in the older society will be carried forward intact into the new society. Thus, learning from the old society occurs. Using Spengler’s Prime Symbol example; if under the old society the old structure is no longer politically viable, that does not mean that education, religion, mathematics, literature, familial concepts, individual manners, and other such symbols are also no longer meaningful. If non-conformists break away in order to form a more appropriate structure, they are most likely to make no changes to the operational concepts that were acceptable in the old society. The Prime Symbol components that pertain to exercising principals that are not conflictory will be carried forward intact. The transference of Prime Symbol components can come from several sources as a society grows and evolves through; (a) the inheritance outlined by Spengler, where nonconformist revolutionaries break away from an earlier social order and begin a new society, they bring with them cultural learning from the earlier society; (b) all societies involve to some degree by transference based on trade with other societies, either through immigration or exploratory

27 visits, bringing in societal differences learned outside; (c) most societies, aware of other societies, will foster contact with other societies one way or another, they may initiate trade relations, or knowledge sharing activity, or enter into defensive or warlike confrontations, or participate in consolidations between societies, but these interfaces happen and when they do knowledge transfer occurs; and (d) more advanced and cosmopolitan societies will study other societies to understand their differences, where this might be a defensive activity, an effort to satisfy curiosity, a true quest for learning, or some other motivator, but this exchange happens. Humans are a curious species and they like to explore, to study, to learn from that which is strange or different. This again involves knowledge transfer and learning. Spengler seems to have missed this inter-societal relationship importance. While his basic theory on the cyclical nature of the rise and decline of societies is apropos, by denying the evolutionary process, learning and exchange that normally occurs between societies his theoretical robustness in application to long term growth and world development is reduced. Parsons (1960, 1971) seemed to have assumed the concepts of evolution and cyclical cultural development, without addressing them. His work deals with the functional values that are held within a society and their influence over the social development continuum, but he does not explain that continuum at a higher level such as in an evolutionary or cyclical process. Without addressing the higher order subsets of social structure; evolution, cyclicality, polity, economics, or other such theories, it is left to speculation. If he completed a statistical analysis of the impact of a value on society, without relating it evolutionarily, he has not fully explained the value within the social fabric as a whole. His presentation becomes a series of events that

28 meander, only relating developmental components, without putting them in context to societal development. Conclusion The operative structure that should exist is one where all theories apply appropriately and simultaneously to the complex societal and cultural general development model. Multiple interdependent societies have evolved from nothingness to where they are today. There clearly have been evolutionary processes and cyclical processes occurring, as well as fundamentalist impacts and the influences of conflict, economic, and other social development processes. Societal development is a more complex continuation than any one theorist has allowed, and a theory representing that fact should be defined. Society develops while at some point, following each of these theories although not necessarily following any one of them more than another. This is a continuous evolution that has been ongoing from prehistoric times to now and that history can demonstrate is a continuous, ongoing, general evolution that has slowly matured over time. Societies that exist today are not the societies from the past and will not be the ones of the future. But they carry with them the memes of all past development. They are truly the latest incarnations of repetitive cyclical processes where a society is born, grows, matures, declines, and dies, and in the dying process gives birth to a later incarnation. That later incarnation then grows, matures, declines, and dies, and gives birth to an even later incarnation. Each time this cycle occurs the new society adopts older social components, adding to them with new developments that better meet the new societal needs. The functional interactivity that facilitates societal growth and operation while it is growing, maturing declining, and dying, is a mechanism

29 that enables that society to survive its own cycle and contribute to future growth and development. At the same time a continuous evolution across successive societies occurs. The truth is that all of the various theories for societal and cultural development work together usually in harmony but possibly in conflict with each other, to produce the complex societal organizations we have today. They, including tribal and familial societies, weave a complex web of social interaction that takes in the salient points of each theory and produces a complex value set with social interactions that are more representative than just the evolutionary, cyclical, functional, conflict, or other theories represent standing alone. When taking each theory in isolation it becomes easy to dismiss the other theories, and that appears to be what happened. The entire communist empire was built on a premise that communism was an ideal, a utopian social form and all other social forms were antisocial in practice. Capitalism assumes the entire world is more interested in wealth and gain, and dismisses other social forms as primitive. Socialism tends to organize around concepts of social good, and less around individual freedoms and personal gain. What really happens is that at any point in time is that the underlying tenets of these theories work together. Social progress and cultural development is a complex fabric of movement that includes aspects of each theory. Evolution occurs in social systems as they go through their life cycles. These cycles may include social, political, economic, religious, business, military, bureaucratic, or other impact that leads to evolutionary advancement. The weighting of these aspects depends upon circumstances that are spontaneous and chaotic, but out of chaos comes order. For example, if progress must be more socialistic then socialism tends to prevail while the individualism and capitalism are downplayed. That does not mean that

30 individualism and capitalism are gone, are not active, merely that socialism carries more social significance. Meanwhile cyclical theory drivers may or may not apply depending upon how significant and far reaching the changes are that are being driven by social change. Regardless of the underlying social order, cyclical change is occurring. Not only do these theories apply, but most others as well. The truth is that societal and cultural development evolves in complex ways. Each theory views societal and cultural development differently and all of the theoretical paradigms or approaches can be taken to impact concurrently and simultaneously to depict a complex fabric of the evolution of social order. Not only are all of the mechanics of the theories presented by Joseph (2008) operant, but others are as well that equally influence societal evolution as we know it today. Joseph does not talk about the more primitive social organization and development forms, such as tribalism or familial cultures. Yet those forms exist as they did more than nine thousand years ago, and still impact complex industrial western social interaction. While Parsons (1960, 1971) may have been right in his developmental theories, his observations did not appear impartial and objective. He presumed that Western society, meaning Western European society, was somehow farther advanced and better than other societies. He dismissed those societies not in the industrialized west, not descended from the Western Roman Empire and Feudal Europe, as somehow more primitive and less developed. He made it sound as if they were following western leadership. This is a fallacy that the industrial west is somehow better than the so called third world. Parsons seemed to base this assumption on the fact that Western society was the most industrial, most technologically advanced society. He proposed that Western society was somehow better because it was able to invoke its standards on the rest

31 of the world. This position made assumptions that may not be true. For example, China is an older and larger social system than Western Europe. China was in their third dynasty, practicing nationalism, having agricultural, economic, education systems and writing, while Western Europe was still hunting and gathering. Likewise India and it’s precursors in the Indus Valley region, and the Mesopotamian culture before the Persians were much older. But because these societies were not industrial as Europe grew into an industrial economy, because their political and economic systems differ from Western culture, Parsons suggested that they are more primitive. They are not, they are just different. In fairness, the theories proposed by these authors were defined prior to modern geological and anthropological discoveries. Spencer did not benefit from understanding plate tectonics or recent archeological finds such as discovering early hominid and pre-hominid fossil remains in central and southern Africa, when he indicated that humanity and social systems developed in temperate climates. His assumption that human development began in a temperate zone was incorrect. Spengler worked with the belief that Germans, and the broader IndoEuropeans, descended from an earlier, extinct race, the Indo-Aryans, a culture that existed in prehistory in an area that today is in the vicinity of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Northern India, and the Himalayas (formerly Persia). While critiquing classical theorists’ points to limitations that these researchers worked under in their respective eras of study, the position is that they present valid statements regarding societal and cultural development. Studying these authors give broader meaning to social development than came from a general non-academic understanding. They present a comprehensive structure that adds to a general understanding needed beyond the conflict and

32 economic theories that have so monopolized understanding societal development. By understanding evolutionary, cyclical, and fundamentalist theory in addition to the conflict, economic, and religious theories that get so much attention in the popular press, a more comprehensive picture of societal and cultural development appears. But this is still incomplete. The following Depth section will study modern theorists to assess and address the influence of modern thinking in relation to the classical theories, as well as to leadership and change.

DEPTH SBSF 8121: CURRENT RESEARCH IN SOCIETAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT Depth Annotations Boudon, R. (2008). Which theory of moral evolution should social scientists choose? International Review of Sociology. 18. 183-196. DOI: 10.1080/03906700802087720. Raymond Boudon is a French sociologist and Professor at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris – Sorbonne. He is a member of many of the leading organizations in Arts and Sciences, has been Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences and invited professor at the leading Universities of Europe and North America. This article contributes to understanding cultural attitudes. The author is an eminent authority, recognized in his field. The article details concepts to understanding value systems, called “a programmatic theory of moral evolution” based on the work of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, based on their assertions regarding individualism, basic to understanding the evolution of social values. This theory proposes that while development is evolutionary, it is not mechanical as suggested by Spencer and others. It is more organic, driven by the development and selection of ideas through a process Weber calls ‘diffuse rationalization’. These ideas become cultural values, irreversibly accepted by public opinion. When they make sense to society as a whole, they become part of the value system, even though not recognized under law. This article does not discuss leadership and change, but is applicable as a source of understanding when exercising leadership. Leadership is about gaining cooperation. Knowing how a value system developed is important while providing leadership, to understanding the limitations that a cultural system has induced. An organization is a social sub-unit of a larger

34 society, and fomenting change requires understanding the value system of both the larger community and the organization in order to provide successful leadership. Boudon’s work helps toward this understanding. Cameron, B. (2008). Grant Allen’s the woman who did: Spencerian individualism and teaching new women to be mothers. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920. 51. 281-301. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=11&hid=13&sid=c33ec5 e7-85ba-4861-8cdc-973ca3b3a10e%40sessionmgr4 Brook Cameron, Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, is a member of the Department of English at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her research is on Victorian literature and gender studies, with a particular interest in end-of-19th-century literary representations of bonds between women and forms of feminine collaboration. Her teaching interests include the British novel, Victorian poetry, interdisciplinary approaches to nineteenth century British literature, literature of the end of the 19th century, and gender and sexuality studies. Cameron reviews the work of Grant Allen, a 19th century author who, like other Victorian era thinkers, used a vehicle of a story about a woman seeking to practice “free love,” as a method of expressing social advancement by refusing to adhere to tradition for love and marriage. Allen’s presentation was intended to demonstrate Spencerian social evolution, in keeping with the popular application of Spencer’s theories in his day. Late Victorian authors generally used Spencer’s version of natural science to move beyond Darwin’s empirical observation and think in terms of the progressive evolution of people and social organizations.

35 In the larger sense, Cameron is discussing in detail how Spencer’s theories were used at the turn of the 19th century to describe social progress. Allen, like other Victorian authors such as Huxley, Mivar, Galton, Carpenter, Schreiner, Eliot, Lawrence, Hardy, Wells, and others, used the form of the novel to present social values such as governmental responsibility, political, ecclesiastical, and industrial regulations, positioning the demise of “authoritative intervention.” Allen used this device in The Woman Who Did to discuss marriage, motherhood, and the social institutions surrounding them as compared to his concept of free love. He viewed the problem as one of restriction to the best opportunities for reproduction as opposed to the affects of monogamy. Allen believed that free sex would enable individuals to be free to act on impulsive desire and form spontaneous sexual unions. Such unions would lead to pairing those who are best suited to producing suitable offspring. Dorfman, B. (2005). Thinking the world: a comment on philosophy of history and globalization studies. International Social Science Review. 80. 103-118. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=16&hid=13&sid=05ee8f 93-2831-49c4-9f94-280be2f0b469%40sessionmgr11. Ben Dorfman is Associate Professor of Intellectual and Cultural History in the Department of Languages and Culture at Aalborg University, Denmark. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Kansas in 2002. He has since, published articles and reviews on topics in historical and cultural theory in many journals related to cultural history. In this article, Dorfman focused on the effects that are leading to globalization and crossborder social development. He compared modern globalization concepts introduced in the poststructural and postmodern periods, to concepts introduced by Georg W. F. Hegel regarding world

36 history on a global scale. Hegel viewed world history as a singular process and incidents from regional, national, or cultural history as contributors to that process. Modern theorists according to Dorfman, study the globalization concept, recognizing cross-border development of economic, political, social, and cultural interactivity as a driving force in the growth of a world social order that does not elevate concepts such as nationalism, regionalism, culturalism, and so on, to the level that existed prior to growth and development of today’s communication and transportation channels. Modern technological changes have changed national, regional, and cultural influence by enhancing cross-border and cross-cultural exchange. Dorfman showed how this is not new and the modern changes are really more a matter of how they are described than truly new developments. This presentation was comprehensive and well supported. In reading this work it was clear that Dorfman had a deep understanding of historical influences and the comparative processes related to globalization. The growth of a global society is fomenting change in regional, national, and cultural understanding. Dorfman’s work explains why this is happening and provides guidance that helps leaders understand the fabric of their constituencies. This can lead to improved leadership ability, particularly in how to understand change and influence constituency performance. Gondermann, T. (2007). Progression and retrogression: Herbert Spencer’s explanations of social inequality. History of the Human Sciences. 20. 21-40. DOI: 10.1177/0952695107079332. Thomas Gondermann, MA, is at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies, the University of Bielelfeld. He studied sociology at the Universities of Hamburg and Essex and wrote his thesis on “Evolution and Race: Theoretical and Institutional Change in Victorian

37 Anthropology. Gondermann reviewed Spencer’s theory on social evolution, and particularly his position regarding “paupers and savages.” The review elaborates Spencer’s duality of progressive and retrogressive social development and their applicability to the existence of poverty and “savages” in modern civilization. Spencer is credited with developing a progressive evolutionary theory of social development. His position was that civilization developed through an evolutionary process that started in primitive times and eventually grew into the higher societies of his day. He developed a retrogressive analysis technique to explain aberrations such as paupers and savages that did not fit the evolutionary model. His primary theory couldn’t account for the existence of these aspects in modern society. Gondermann believed that Spencer developed the retrogressive description specifically to support the existence of these anomalies. This presentation is interesting in the sense that it recognizes the duality of Spencer’s theory. The retrogressive portion of his theory is the important aspect, a fact commonly overlooked by other researchers. Spencer is credited with a progressive evolutionary social theory that represents a linear progression of development into modern civilization. He is not often credited for his retrogressive explanation of modern primitive societies, as well as the existence of chronic poverty. It is important to understand Spencer’s theory completely. Complex societies evolve over time and Spencer provided a framework for explaining this evolution. The theory is useful, but should not be rigidly accepted as good science. His position that somatic evolution drives social evolution has been well discredited and modern researchers are better served not to accept these parts of his theories, the parts that apply to his position on poverty and primitive society.

38 Hansen, X. (2004). Back to the future: the origins and return of sociology as the scientific study of societal development. American Sociological Association, 2004 Annual Meeting. 1-22. DOI: asa_proceeding_34341.PDF; (AN 15928829) Xavier Hansen graduated from Rutgers University and is Vice President, Quality Assurance at HNW, a marketing firm focused exclusively on the wealth management firms and luxury brand markets. He has a technology background, having developed through a project management and quality assurance career track in boutique technology firms providing high-end online services. This presentation discusses how the widespread adoption of the internet and a “Cybernetic Revolution” will impact sociological development in the future. The author perceived that the increased communication in modern technology will cause a new transitional era in social development. This will require rethinking social evolution in terms of the basics that were started with the classical writers of the 19th century. Social development will need redefinition driven by this adoption of cybernetic technology. Hansen’s explanation is accurate in describing the work of the classical authors but does not clearly link their respective theories directly to his own hypothesis. In a broader sense his premise that the electronic technology revolution of the past 20 years has impacted social development is an important concept. It is much broader than a cybernetic revolution, but it is significant in understanding modern sociological development. Societal and cultural change is happening faster and more radically than ever before and this is attributable in part to the improved communications offered by the internet and associative technology.

39 The author raises an important issue, indicating that the growth and use of technology is impacting the evolution of society. Technology has changed how individuals and groups communicate. It has made the communication across large distances easier, between nations more positive, and lowered the barriers represented by nationalism. Today’s leadership needs to be cognizant of the fundamental changes in communication mechanics in order to be able to lead effectively. Hansen is correct in pointing out the importance of reviewing and rethinking the theories of the classical researchers of the 19th century in light of the latest advancements in communication technology. Huberman, B. A., Loch, C. H., Öncüler, A. (2004). Status as a valued resource. Social Psychology Quarterly. 67. 103-114. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=4&hid=13&sid=1d279b 9f-8aa7-441e-a8f9-91d42626ed4f%40sessionmgr10. Bernardo Huberman, Ph.D., is a Senior HP Fellow and Director of the Social Computing Lab at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, a Consulting Professor in the Department of Applied Physics, and a faculty member in the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University at Stanford University. Christoph H. Loch, Ph.D. is Professor of Technology Management at INSEAD and Dean of the PhD Program. He teaches MBA courses and executive seminars. Ayse Öncüler teaches Negotiation Analysis and Risk Management in the Executive Education programs, as well as in the MBA program of INSEAD. She holds a Masters in Applied Economics and a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences. This article presents results of studies in five different nationalities, of the significance of their respective quests for status. It includes observations of the general quest for status as well

40 as delineating this quest by gender. The findings show that humans pursue status as an end in itself. This is true across cultures as a generalized finding. Status is worth a positive amount of material gain. Cross-cultural differences influence the relative importance of status, predicted accurately by Hofstede’s cultural power distance index, and the relative willingness to display status publicly. Secondary or higher social emotion corresponds to previous cross-cultural studies of the so-called basic emotions (joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, guilt) that have been significantly stable across cultures, with important modulations or variations around a universal theme. People tend to overinvest resources whenever “winning against others” is involved, because winning confers status. The comparative analysis suggests some conditions where inefficient status seeking behavior is aggravated, namely in cultural and gender differences. Further study is needed to establish this. The study was a quantitative study using Hofstede’s cultural power distance index to demonstrate outcomes of a two part “rent” test. The study is completely explained, a reasonable application, and adequately demonstrated the findings. The conclusions are entirely appropriate and the depth of the work is adequate. This study presents an interesting aspect of human behavior, important to leadership understanding if leaders are to be successfully expected to lead an organization through change. A common practice in achieving change is to set up competitive situations. Organizational change occurs more smoothly with less resistance when competition is interjected into the process. This study demonstrates reasons why this occurs. People are competitive. They respond

41 to situations where winning is paramount. They will forgo other rewards in order to win competitively. This study demonstrates that as a fundamental value that is intercultural. Kay A. C., Gaucher, D., Peach, J. M., Kristin, L., Friesen, J., Zanna, M. P. & Spencer, S. J., (2009). Inequality, discrimination, and the power of the status quo: direct evidence for a motivation to see the way things are as the way they should be. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 97. 421-434. DOI: 10.1037/a0015997. The authors worked at the University of Waterloo to test the hypothesis that society accepts the status quo of social organization including inequities that exist in that organization, even when unfair, as acceptable. This acceptance is based on the belief that the way things are is the way things should be, regardless of whether in fact that belief is true. The research team completed several quantitative experiments across four different social domains and proved their hypothesis in each one. This group worked under the guidance of a faculty chair funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The article noted the disparity in the numbers of women and ethnic groups as members of senior management, when compared to Caucasian men. The authors compare this to the concept of “Injunctification,” that is the tendency to accept the way things are as fair, reasonable, and representative of the way things should be. The article presented four experiments in various populations testing for Injunctification, and concluded that the findings were consistent with the hypothesis; that people are motivated to view the current status quo as desirable, and the psychological tendency for preventing social change was that maintaining inequality is acceptable. Thus, the fact that women and ethnic minorities are less than 2% of senior leadership,

42 although they are close to 50% of the general population, is seen as a fair and equitable arrangement by the populations represented in the experiments. In business and organizational leadership there is discussion around equitable treatment, particularly of women and ethnic minorities. Yet these studies, if they are to be taken as representative, demonstrate that society generally accepts the discriminatory practices against women and ethnic minorities as the status quo, is considered acceptable. A leader needs to be cognizant of this in order to affect change. Truth is not always what it seems to be. Maguire, R. (2006). Guilt by association? The hazards of linking the concept of the state with violence. European Review of History – Revue europeenne d’Histoire. 13. 293-310. DOI: 10.1080/13507480600786870 Richard Maguire, Ph. D. is Historian for the Norwich and Norfolk Racial Equality Council’s Hidden Heritage Project and associated with the University of East Anglia, U. K., where he has written particularly on the relationship between the state and violence. His research involves a historical analysis of nuclear weapons history in France, the UK and the USA. Currently free-lance (post Warwick, Southampton and UEA) Maguire is directing a Heritage Lottery funded project on the connections between the international slave trade and East Anglia, including an award winning civic program involving schools, prisons, and local government. Richard Maguire has devoted his career to the study of the relationship between the state and violence. He was involved in the military, in the activities to control nuclear proliferation. He studied the relationship between government and the slave trade, and by extension government’s propensity to violate the rights of individuals. He has turned this into a body of work showing how government tends to overstep their mandate and assume more power than they are entitled.

43 Maguire presents a case about the use of violence and coercion by governments, including those that are thought of as democratic representations of their citizenry. In a free market economy these are more normally expected to be limited in scope to providing welfare and protection. He discusses how societies today are more inclined to accept violence and coercion as normal behavior of government, as compared to past eras where these aspects were noted more as necessary evils. He raises the concern that the use of violence to invoke social policy may include unintended consequences, such as invasion of privacy, or creation of “victimless” crimes, that are neither beneficial to society, nor desired by the governed. This is important to leadership because understanding how governments respond to private activity will influence decisions, and the internal, private, organizational problem of governance. Understanding government behavior will also influence how the private organization interacts with and possibly tries to influence public policy. Maguire’s work is an area where study is limited but is important to understanding why governments behave as they do and why private organizations try to influence them. Marotta, V. (2006). Civilisation, culture and the hybrid self in the work of Robert Ezra Park. Journal of Inter cultural Studies. 27. 413-433. DOI: 10.1080/07256860600936911 Dr Vince Marotta is a lecturer in sociology at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include migration, cultural identity, multiculturalism and social theory. His recent publications include: ‘‘Multicultural and Multiethnic cities in Australia’’ in R. Hutchinson & J. Krase (Eds.) Research in Urban Sociology, Vol. 8: Ethnic Landscapes in a Global World, 2007 and the ‘‘The Cosmopolitan Stranger’’, Lo Straniero, no. 42, 2005.

44 The article reviewed the work of Chicago sociologist, Robert E. Park with a discussion of the contribution of ethnic discrimination and cultural segregation to societal development. He described the concept of the “marginal man,” the mixed culture person that impacts each of the respective cultures from which their heritage is derived. This review was taken in light of the influence of Oswald Spengler. While Park professed that there was no superiority of one race over another, he recognized that the primitive are inferior to the superior. The “marginal man” represents a crossover from one culture to the other and is inclined to be a cosmopolitan blending of the two. Park differed from Spengler in that he recognized an evolutionary process, but accepted Spengler’s premise that every civilization goes through a cyclical process. He also recognized that colonization led to cultural intermingling and creation of the dynamics of rationalizing the values between the comingled cultures. Advancement of civilization is a function of this intermingling and a division of labor that undermines old social ties and organization, creating “world cities” that are interdependent. Park’s primary example is the Mulatto culture in the United States, which lives in two worlds but is not linked to either and thus emerges as a cultural hybrid. Marotta’s work demonstrated practical applicability of Spengler’s theories, through the work of Park. This is an excellent review of the application of classical theory, albeit a racially discriminatory theory, to modern social development. Understanding his article helps define how evolutionary and cyclical theory both apply to cultural development. He gave real examples of social evolution happening in the comingling of cultures, as represented by the comingling of races. He provided an excellent expose of how culture evolves by the integration of value systems from formerly distinct societies, and explains well this integration.

45 McCann, C. R. Jr. (2005). Observations on the “Vanity of the Philosopher.” American Journal of Economics & Sociology. 67(3). 401-413. DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00582.x. Charles R. McCann, Jr. is at the Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Individualism and the Social Order: The Social Element in Liberal Thought (2004). In this work, McCann reviews Vanity of the philosopher (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005 by Sandra Peart and David Levy), with particularly attention to highlighting the themes of the classical philosophers in economics and societal development, that supported positions that those philosophers were actually more supportive of heterogeneity and equality than later philosophers who quoted the earlier work in support of racism, eugenics, hierarchy, and egalitarianism. Particularly, Pert and Levy reviewed the works of David Hume, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, and Herbert Spencer and their respective positions in terms of equality, heterogeneity and homogeneity. They found that Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill were advocates of equality and homogeneity. Charles Darwin agreed with Smith’s morality but is credited with a shift to heterogeneity. His position on natural selection suggests that the “general good” is best represented by “‘rearing the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health, with all their faculties perfect.’ Thus to advance the perfection of the race is to further the general good.” David Hume expressed belief in equality and homogeneity but presented other theory that could lead one to question whether or not these beliefs were more for polygenesis. Remember Hume lived in an age when considering one race less developed, less capable than another, was the accepted norm. Discrimination was more than an accepted practice, the reasons for it were accepted societal beliefs and to go against those beliefs was difficult.

46 Peart and Levy (as cited in McCann, 2005) found that Herbert Spencer, while in agreement with Smith in a moral sense, believed in racial differences. He believed that heterogeneity is an evolutionary development. From these findings Peart and Levy conclude that care should be taken in citing these positions, that the differences between classical and neoclassical philosophers regarding the nature of man is warranted, and that further study is needed. This author’s presentation was an objective summarization of the positions of several of the classical philosophers of the 18th and 19th Centuries in regards to their positions on social equality. It was an excellent exposition of these positions and compares them to later positions that weren’t as objective as these writers. The only caveat is to be careful to understand the social environment of their times. Equality was not defined the same during the 18th and 19th Centuries, as it is today and the reader should allow for that. Peart, S. J. Levy & D. M., (2005). From cardinal to ordinal utility theory Darwin and differential capacity for happiness. American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 64. 851-879. DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00394.x Sandra Peart is a professor in the Economics Department, Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, and Director of the Summer Institute for the History of Economic Thought at George Mason University’s Public Choice Center. David Levy, Ph.D., is at the Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. These authors are both interested in preserving the history of economics and collaborate in projects, books, and other research. They compared the philosophies of Mill and Spencer to the theories of Darwin. This article recognizes the contributions of “utilitarianism” to social development with a discussion of the respective comparative paths of utilitarianism and Darwinism, and establishes that Spencer being

47 recognized as the founder of “social Darwinism” is inappropriate. The philosophies of these two researchers were actually directly contradictory. While the article presents good discussion about Spencer’s utilitarianism as compared to Darwin’s evolutionary process, and provides excellent insight into the philosophical thinking of the 19th Century, it’s most important contribution is detailing theories of that day sufficiently to understand how they are outdated. In reading this article it becomes easy to understand the bias that each author brought to their respective research and how that compares to modern sociological theory. Modern theorists have moved far beyond the concepts of Spencer and Darwin in terms of social theory, but the contribution of evolutionary thinking has had and continues to have a significant effect on modern thinking. Among the largest challenges in leadership and change today, is the social attitude of the rank and file members of an organization. Understanding social development is an important requirement for modern leadership, and this article helps explain where modern societal development thinking began. Leaders responsible for social change have an additional responsibility to understand this societal development throughout history in order to be able to affect change successfully. They need to know where their constituency comes from and how to effectively manage in order to bring about change. Robertson, R. & Inglis, D. (2004). Uncovering global consciousness: ancient reflections on ‘world’ global affairs. Conference papers – American Sociological Association; 2004 Annual Meeting, San Francisco. 1-26. DOI: asa_proceeding_35544.PDF. David Inglis, Ph.D., AcSS, is at the University of Aberdeen, U.K, teaching in the areas of classical sociological theory, modern social theory, and the sociology of art and culture. His research interests include study as a theoretical and historical oriented cultural sociologist.

48 Roland Robertson, Ph.D., is a chair at the University of Aberdeen, U. K., and a pioneer in the study of globalization. He has been on faculty at the Universities of Leeds, Essex, and Pittsburgh, USA, and has held visiting positions at universities in Sweden, Japan, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. His research interests include the theory of globalization, nationalism, national identity and the future of the nation-state, and religion and globalization. Globalization was defined as “the compression of the world and intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.” This phenomenon was described as the understanding a culture has of its relationship in terms of political, religious, trade, and other like connections across the world. The authors demonstrate that global consciousness is not a purely modern phenomenon, showing this by discussing the similar global model noted when studying Rome during the first century BC through the third century AD. They also noted that during that earlier time Ancient Romans, just as we do today, contemplated the concept of the “global city,” which was likened to the modern urban context like London, New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. The paper showed this global consciousness from ancient times can contribute to modern understanding. This article is a statement about globalization, that it is not just a modern phenomenon. It is a good beginning to identifying underlying social change in progress that may be more significant than anything that has preceded it. Globalization is more than just a phenomenon; it is a real change that has occurred as a result of improvements in transportation and communication over the past 200 years. These changes have fundamentally changed human society, to a degree that societal organization has weakened and fundamentally changed in turn. Those values and

49 traditions that supported nationalism and its concurrent delineation of cultural identity have lost significance and rigidity. It may be true that the concept of Nation-State is in decline. Runciman, W. G. (2008). Forgetting the founders. Sociological Review. 56. 358-369. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2008.00794.x. Walter Garrison Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford, CBE, FBA, is a leading British historical sociologist. He has been a Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, U. K., since 1971, researching in the field of comparative and historical sociology. His principal research interest is the application of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory to cultural and social selection. He holds honorary degrees from King's College London and the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and York. This article reviews the application of social Darwinism in modern sociology. It discusses the impediment to sociological development that the continuing inclusion of the works of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim causes in recognizing how prevalent and true the concepts of social evolution are in explaining modern societal development. Marx, Weber, and Durkheim did not recognize or sanction the concept of social evolution. Their theories did not allow for it. Runciman points out that the concept of a meme could not explain social advancement in terms of Marx’s, Weber’s, or Durkheim’s work, but research has gone on to prove that evolution, and particularly that social evolution supported by memetics, is valid theory. The article finishes with a proposition that defending the work of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim as founders of sociological theory results in interference in the acceptance of the fact that societal development occurs through an evolutionary process.

50 Going forward, it will be important for the future to establish the contribution of social evolutionary theory to our understanding. This process is innate and becoming recognized as an important motivator of change and adjustment in the developmental process. If leaders are to affect change they will need to understand how this occurs, which highlights the importance of understanding social development. The leader who attempts to foment change without understanding the mechanics of social growth risks failure. Stone, B. L. (2008). The evolution of culture and sociology. American Sociologist. 39. 68-85. DOI: 10.1007/s12108-008-9031-4. Dr. Stone is Professor of Sociology and Director of American Studies at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia, has been an instructor at the University of Illinois, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, and served as a Visiting Professor at Emory University on five different occasions. He is the author of numerous articles, reviews, and book chapters and his work has recently appeared in Society, Sociological Forum, Humanitas, and The Intercollegiate Review. He is the recipient of two teaching awards, a University Fellowship at the University of Illinois and an NEH Study Grant, and is a contributor to American Conservatism: an Encyclopedia (ISI Search, 2010, April 28) The purpose of this article was to summarize the main features of dual inheritance in order to persuade sociologists that recent research and empirical study in evolutionary science can accommodate the research interests of sociologists. The author defines neo-Darwinism, the application of Darwinian Theory to psychosocial development, and the concepts of dual inheritance, recognizing that social evolution is a function of two elements, a genetic element and a memetic element. The genetic element is expressed in neo-Darwinian evolution, that

51 psychosocial development is fomented by genetic transmission; social development and behavior is controlled by a gene in biological evolution. The concept of the “meme,” introduced by Richard Dawkins (2006), is a gene-like entity of social development that spreads social behaviors as it would in a natural selection process. The term was coined to describe unique aspects of social development that are more the result of social interaction, transmission, and inheritance than the biological development and transmission of an underlying behavior. Stone demonstrated how dismissal of the memetic concept of social behavior transmission, not allowing for the social activity in that form of transmission, has arbitrarily limited neo-Darwinian explanations for the social behavior of modern mankind. He defined the modern evolutionary theorists as neo-Darwinists, and acknowledged that evolutionary theory is a valid approach. Stone presented a long list of developmental concerns that are not easily defined under the genetic model. For example; social conflict, mating and marriage practices, malefemale differences, interfamily favoritism, to name a few. Stone suggests that these types of beliefs are better explained through memeticism than geneticism. The article presents a well supported case with ample citation regarding parallels between these theories of social development, and demonstrates commonality between the two fields of study. It is a strong argument for application of a dual inheritance approach. Uhlmann, E. L., Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2008). Varieties of social cognition. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior. 38. 293-322. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2008.00372.x. This article presents understanding of unconscious influencers and states on behavior in a social environment. The authors, researchers in psychology and management at their respective institutions, study intuitive behavior facilitating common-sense, moral judgment, and intuitive

52 decision making. Together they concluded that most of everyday life is determined by unconscious mental processes, put in motion by features of the environment that operate outside conscious awareness and guidance. Unconscious influencers and states have profound effects for unconscious behavior. The research establishes this influence as unconscious and uncontrolled, including leadership behavior. Conscious behavior can be influenced by knowledge of the underlying unconscious influencers and states. This research adds depth to leadership ability to attain and maintain objectivity. Leaders need cognizance of the expected reactions of followers. By understanding how followers react, leaders may better affect change through orchestration of the change environment. The authors present a convincing case with ample support regarding behavioral influencers. Their findings are well validated with experimental data collected from a variety of other researchers. The article confirms research that people respond through a filter of their own of values and prejudices. Not knowing they are responding unconsciously, respondents may believe their actions are objective and appropriate. These responses can be controlled by careful planning. People respond based on beliefs that come from recent stimulus. Controlling the stimulus will facilitate controlling the response. Zafirovski, M. (2005). Is sociology the science of the irrational? Conceptions of rationality in sociological theory. The American Sociologist. 36. 85-110. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=21&hid=13&sid=05ee8f 93-2831-49c4-9f94-280be2f0b469%40sessionmgr11. Milan Zafirovski, Ph. D., is associate professor of sociology at University of North Texas, Denton. His research interests are multi-disciplinary. His recent publications include

53 articles in American Sociologist and other journals as well as three books; Exchange, Action and Social Structure: Elements of Economic Sociology (Greenwood Press, 2001); A Primer on Economic Sociology: The Duality of Structure in Markets (NOVA Science Publishers, 2002); and Market and Society: Two Theoretical Frameworks (Praeger, 2003). What does this article have to say about societal and cultural development? This article is a comprehensive review of rationality in sociological theory. The study addresses the conflict between what sociologists and economists respectively, consider being a “rational man.” Economics defines this concept narrowly as a structured hypothetical being, specifically designed to facilitate economic decision theory. To an economist, the “rational man” is the one who when presented with variables, makes the most economically efficient choices. Sociologists are broken into two categories; classical, and post-modern or contemporary. The classical sociologist defines this character as a real social being making decisions about means toward ends, representing a best course of action out of multiple possibilities. Post-modern and contemporary sociologists see the same rational man, but are include that these choices are between the ends before deciding on the means towards those ends. The study concludes that the net difference between classical sociology, economics, and rational choice theorists is that the respective disciplines define “rational” differently, and that economists and rational choice theorists have not allowed that classical sociology studied the concept of the rational man, because the classical sociologist does not use the economic model definition. This article is a very dense, comprehensive exposition of the concept of rationality. It is excellent at presenting arguments that have existed since the beginning of modern psychology with Comte, Weber, Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Simmel, Pareto, and Tonnies, then carried on

54 through the discussion of post-modern contemporaries Mannheim, Sorokin, Parsons, and Shutz. The arguments over differing definitions for rationality between sociology and economics have been an ongoing discourse throughout modernity. While Zafirovski presents an excellent, well grounded discussion from the perspective of classical sociology, one wonders whether contemporary economists and rational-choice theorists will give credit to this position. Zebrowski, R. L. (2008). Mind is primarily a verb: an examination of mistaken similarities between John Dewey and Herbert Spencer. Educational Theory. 58, 305-320. DOI : 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2008.00290. Robin L. Zebrowski is an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at Beloit College, Beloit, WI; her primary areas of scholarship are philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and American philosophy. The author refuted the belief that John Dewey, considered a proponent and early thinker on modern education, was influenced by Herbert Spencer. The two philosophers had similar positions on how education should be conducted. Zebrowski posits that these two scholars, while having similar ideas, were actually very different. While similar in thinking how children learn, how teaching should occur, and why its conduct should be way, their thinking was rooted in different criteria. Although their expected outcomes were similar their underlying thinking was different. Zebrowski demonstrated how it is not possible for Dewey’s philosophy to be derived from Spencer. Zebrowski’s concern was that misinterpretation could affect educational support. Both scholars pressed for scientifically based education to replace the approach of their day, but their respective reasoning was different. Spencer’s position was that education had to have a valid

55 purpose in the context of evolution; Dewey believed that learning is an inherent ability that all humans exercise. Both believed in evolution, but for different reasons. The concern is that evolutionists, basing their thoughts on Spencer, could turn away from the scientific roots of education, Dewey did not think this way. Education was the science while for Spencer, evolution was the science. For Dewey, a failure was a failure in the education system. Spencer believed that education must conform to the evolutionary natural selection process. If there was failure it was in the biology of education. But both philosophers were dissatisfied with classical education and saw a need for change. This article showed the sort of understanding that led to the demise of Spencer as an authority. While both authors recognized an evolutionary process, Spencer focused on the evolutionary selection process from a biologically driven perspective and viewed societal development and change from that paradigm. Had he been born a few years later he would probably have taken exception to Dewey, because of their differences. But it is hard to say today, whether these two philosophers came to their derivations independently or that Spencer was a source for Dewey. Dewey did not explicitly say he was, and in the absence of that any other supposition is speculation. Literature Review Essay Research in societal and cultural development over the past 300 years has made significant strides toward defining how humanity has progressed overall, as well as in the assemblage of its subgroups, that together comprise modern society as a whole. This research has studied how society has developed as larger societies do, how they grow independently, and what contributions they make. A large variety of researchers from many different disciplines

56 have contributed to a comprehensive picture of social development. These include economists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, theologians, and educators, as well as governments and their agencies, institutions, private organizations, and business organizations of all sorts, devoted to understanding, and in some cases controlling, the direction and development in the many types of social groups and organizations that make up society as we know it. This research has been important to understanding how the principals of organizational leadership apply to organizational development. Organizations are social groups. Leadership is most commonly thought of as a capability, an application of skills and technology that develops within organizations to respond to the need for identifying and defining direction, goals and objectives, processes, and the guidance needed for organizations to achieve a level of coherence, coordination, and unity. Leadership is most often seen as a set of practices and behaviors that when applied within a group, or subgroup of individuals within a larger group, will foster a shared sense of direction and followership among the rest of that group. In essence, a leader is a person who has followers. Any further definition is merely an expansion, embellishment, or complication as may be needed to define a particular leadership requirement, paradigm, personality, style, or capability. But at its simplest and most pure definition a leader is someone with followers. This paper will compare the theories of sociological study to the paradigm of organizations to determine the influence sociology has on the development and growth of organizational leadership. There seems to be disconnection between the concepts of leadership development and societal development. At a minimum, the concepts function at different levels of understanding. Leadership is generally perceived as a mechanical, teachable process within structured

57 organizations, whereby an individual with the capacity and aptitude for leadership can be taught tactics, principles, and behaviors that give him or her, the tools needed to affect leadership over a group. Social development is understood to be more of a spontaneous growth and assemblage of a group with shared behaviors or taboos, acceptable interactions, and consensual, mutually understood practices, that when taken together within that group establish an identity that sets it apart as an entity, identifiable from other dependent or independent groups or from the larger group of which that social group is a subordinate member. Within the study of social development, leadership is not shown to be a component of that development. Sociologists seem to assume that the growth and development of shared values, goals, and objectives are somehow just there. These traits are presented as if they were mere outcomes of the assemblage of the group. It seemed that research sociologists, both classical and modern, have not recognized leadership groups as subgroups of the larger sociological development, with their own unique developmental characteristics, distinct from the larger group, society or culture in general. At least within the scope of this document, no particular research was noted recognizing leadership groups as unique sociological developments. That being said, the assumption can be made that leaders experience the same sociological influencers as the general population. However, experience shows that leaders do somehow develop differently. They are inclined to appear more self confident, self starting, self directed, and goal oriented, at least in terms of the societal or cultural positions where they hold leadership. Whether or not leaders are generally different in these aspects in all of their behavior and interaction with society requires further study. But at a

58 minimum, when in their leadership roles, leaders interact differently than the majority of the social group wherein they are recognized as leaders. How Modern Theorists Address Classical Philosophers In the field of sociology and in the study of societal and cultural development, it is important to understand how true to the positions of classical theorists modern researchers stay. At a minimum, they should at least recognize that classical theorists had studied and developed positions regarding a respective area of societal development in which the modern researcher was interested. It appears that modern researchers are generally true to the work of the classical theorists and reference those earlier authors routinely in structuring modern work. This observation is important because there have been areas of scientific study where this has not been as true. For example, modern theorists in psychology and social-psychology often deviate from classical theories, beginning and ending their research, findings, and conclusions without apparent consideration of classical theory at all. Often they do not recognize earlier theories. It is as if they did not exist. These theorists seem to structure their research isolated to their own hypotheses without offering a logical link to the classical theories of their field. The majority of modern work noted in the field of psychology seems to have relatively little basis in classical research. This does not appear as true in sociology, where most researchers begin with considering what the classical philosophers of the 19th and early 20th centuries expressed. Raymond Boudon (2008) is an example of beginning with a classical theorist then conducting research in modern times while relating that research back to the earlier work. Boudon was critical of evolutionary theory. His criticism is based on reviewing the work of Friedrich Hayek (as cited in Boudon, 2008), the Austrian economist and Nobel Laureate, and the

59 fact that Hayek’s theory did not include any provision for what Boudon calls absolute innovations, innovations not induced by adaptation mechanisms. That is Hayek’s theory does not allow for the influence of “original thought.” Boudon feels supported in this by suggesting that Durkheim had given the same criticism of Spencer. While it may be true that classical evolutionary theorists may not have allowed for original thought or innovation that does not mean that evolutionary theory is invalid. Maybe Spencer, Hayek, and others discounted original creative thought as a function of the evolutionary process but it does occur. While original thought is part of the social development process it is a minority of it. Most creativity, including original thought, is actually a modification of earlier thought (Moore, 2009). We as a species have a knack for looking at existence in abstraction and projecting circumstances into unrelated different experiences. Often what is seen as original creative thought is nothing more than the application of known facts to new situations. This does not mean that Spencer or Hayek were wrong in their concept of evolutionary process, it only shows that they may have been overly restrictive or simplistic in their definitions, and discounted the possibility and influence of invention or truly original creativity. As we go forward we see two schools of thought on the classical theories, one reads those theories literally as if they were an all or nothing statement of findings, while the other suggests that these theories are merely relatively simplified statements of positions and that they do not account for complexities that might otherwise cloud the framework they are presenting. Modern researchers often do not allow that the theories classical authors presented were the product of their times, including the limitations of thought processes they lived under. For example, Spencer is often criticized by many modern theorists for holding discriminatory beliefs, presenting

60 positions that are influenced by this discrimination. But in Spencer’s time it was generally accepted that there were inferior races and societies in existence. Western civilization was considered the advanced civilization and all others, including some that had been successfully socialized for many thousands of years longer than the west, were called primitive. Eugenics was accepted as fact. Inferiority of primitive peoples was also an accepted fact. Spencer’s theories included these underlying assumptions that might not have been valid if tested, or that might have been untestable. But the basic premise of his theory, that societies evolve and continuously progress through a process of natural selection in order to achieve a state of equilibrium, is or should be accepted as valid or proven invalid. That evolution happens is an accepted truth. If social evolution does not happen then that should be proven. Another concept that reoccurred in this study is that there are two tracks, particularly in evolutionary theory; one that originates with Spencer, and one that originates with Emile Durkheim. Durkheim was a peer of Spencer who based his theories on the work of Auguste Comte (Durkheim, 1893), whereas Spencer was more influenced by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (Gould, 2002). This dichotomy has persisted since Durkheim’s delivery and was to some degree instigated by Durkheim’s subsequent criticism of Spencer. This will be apparent throughout this Depth section as each of the respective researchers are referenced, which line of thinking they profess will be covered. Ben Dorfman’s (2005) contribution is important. He points out that the divisionalism and stratification that comes with nationalist, regional, or cultural identity is waning. The growth of modern communication and transportation systems has served to equalize what had been a form of discrimination that had been held by unique societies for millennia. This normalization has

61 tended to subdue the strength or virilance of past nationalistic or regional autonomy. Dorfman expressed a theory that in modern globalization societies have transcended the aspects of crossborderness, trans-cultural, trans-political, and trans-social behaviors. States of national, cultural, political, and social structures are being absorbed into a global culture, and an idea is growing that these aspects of society are becoming part and parcel of a world order instead of unique to respective regional, national, economic, political, or social structures. To support this, he quoted Roland Robertson who identified this new state of global culture as “the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.” This is a theme that was seen throughout this study, that the isolationistic concepts of nationalism, culturalism, racism, and socialism, are waning as a result of the influence of faster and better communications as well as the impact of global transportation systems. Dorfman’s (2005) work supported evolutionary theory. Like Uhlman, Pizzaro, and Bloom (2008), Dorfman offered reasonable additions to evolutionary theory. Social progress is more complex and nebulous than classical authors suggested, and Dorfman added a level of robustness to the definition of social progress. His contribution recognized that social change is occurring and integration and homogenization of society, caused by the influences of world markets, international transportation systems, international communications, is reducing the potential for conflict. Kay et al. (2009) did not directly address the classical theories of Spencer (1882, 1972), Spengler (1966-70, 1967), or Parsons (1960, 1971). But their work is a typical example of testing the effects of the interaction of social subsystems, as Parsons theorized they would. Parsons predicted that societal growth is a function of the interaction of the various organizations within

62 society and how they hold true to their values while interrelating with other members. Kay, et al. tested this truth by studying the impact of maintaining a status quo within social groups, even when it was wrong to do so. Kay et al. were in essence, testing Parsons’ theory although they did not relate their work to an understanding of fundamentalism. Their reference to Parsons is only through secondary sourcing, and then they did not indicate that as a reference. This knowledge can be ascertained by studying their sources and finding that those sources in turn, referenced Parsons. Gondermann (2007) reviewed Spencer’s explanations of social inequality, with particular attention to his position on poverty and primitive culture. Gondermann refined Spencer’s duality of progressive and retrogressive social development and the application of these concepts to the existence of primitive societies in modern world culture, as well as his position on the existence of chronic poverty. Gondermann recognized the importance of isolating the retrogressive portion of Spencer’s theory. Complex societies evolve over time and Spencer provided good explanation for this evolution. However, his positions as they pertain to the elements of society that represent the poverty and primitive classes have been fairly well discredited. Spencer believed that primitive humans were physically incapable of advancement like westerners, and developed a hypothesis to explain why primitive societies did not advance. Gondermann refreshed our understanding of Spencer’s theory. In his presentation, by presenting Spencer’s work as if were the authority on social evolution, Gondermann showed that the tendency to adhere to one or the other of the classical social theories to the exclusion of the possibility of others is prevalent. Gondermann clearly valued the theories of Spencer and does not discuss the theories of Durkheim, Darwin, Weber, or any of the others who also independently established an

63 evolutionary process to explain societal progress. Gondermann used the theories of Spencer and for him that was enough. Huberman, Loch and Öncüler (2004) studied goals and rewards in terms of status seeking behavior. Their findings were that humans seek status as a reward in addition to, or as an alternative for, access to resources and material benefits. In presenting these findings they referred to work by Robert F. Bales, edited by Talcott Parsons, Robert F. Bales, and Edward A. Shils (The Equilibrium Problem in Small Groups) among a series of works related to their position in this paper. This work was a quantitative study that established the findings. Any qualitative suggestions were limited to providing suggested topics for further research. But they did demonstrate that seeking status as a reward is a universal characteristic and should be further studied. Robertson and Inglis (2004) addressed globalization. The authors contended that in globalization there is a consciousness of the world as a whole. This is a function of the fact that people becoming aware that the geographic parts of the world as they know it are becoming systematically connected to each other. When defined this way globalization can be seen as not a purely modern phenomenon. The authors compared modern concepts of globalization with the concepts held during the time of the Roman Empire, noting the similarities. Their understanding of Roman global concepts was drawn in part, from the work of Spengler. Spengler addressed how Ancient Rome perceived the Roman Empire thematically as the “city-as-world.” In establishing this relationship Robertson and Inglis demonstrated that the concept of globalization is not new and has occurred in prior history.

64 Peart and Levy (2005) studied Herbert Spencer (as well as J. S. Mill) in comparison to Darwin. In doing this they serve as an example of modern research paying attention to classical theory. Peart and Levy (2005) compared Spencer’s goal in terms of the how happiness was maximized with Darwin’s goal of the “general good.” They considered Edgeworth’s hedonic calculus, Darwin’s challenge to the utilitarianism of Mill and Spencer, and “suggest that the Paretian principle returns utilitarianism to its egalitarian roots.” Maquire (2005) began by restating the positions of several classical theorists, including Spencer. Spencer recognized that in a militant society, such as socialism, invasive and coercive measures were exercised to obtain compliance, more so than in industrial societies where cooperation was sought because coercive tactics did not work as well. However, he also recognized that less coercive measures were only possible in a just society, and a government could only operate without coercion in such a society. Spencer equated the industrial society to this latter form of societal development and government. These authors showed how Spencer and others have influenced thinking about societal development. They accept his framework as a starting point for their studies. Marotta (2006) wrote to add to the discussion on the social theory of hybridity and the literature on Robert E. Park. Park’s analysis (as cited in Marotta, 2006), expressed in terms that inter-cultural and inter-racial interaction, is a key conceptual framework. Park in turn, was influenced by Spengler’s work on the modern metropolis and the urban individual. Spengler developed the concept of the “marginal man,” individuals such as the hybrid who live in the margins of society, not rooted in any of the cultures from which their heritage is derived. Marotta referenced the evolutionary concept of societal development presented by Frederick Teggart. This concept presented societal evolution as a series of abrupt changes and unexpected

65 occurrences. As compared to Spencer who suggested that societal evolution is a function of a society seeking to attain equilibrium with external influencers, Teggart’s form of evolutionary process used a catastrophic theory of civilization to represent change. Spencer’s theories did not address change abruptly, leaving an assumption by the reader that evolution is a gradual, continuous process. Teggart indicated that when catastrophe occurs, individual behavior changes, which leads to changes in societal behavior. The radical nature of change varies based on the significance of the catastrophe. The more significant the change, the more permanent the societal change. McCann (2005) presented a review of the work of Sandra Peart and David Levy in the book The Vanity of the Philosopher (as cited in McCann, 2005). Peart and Levy had a goal to make clear, “the transition from classical to post classical economics.” (Peart & Levy, 2005). McCann’s (2005) article is to address points in Peart and Levy’s work that appear incomplete or in error, particularly in regard to interpretations of Mill and Spencer. The purpose is to expand on certain areas where Peart and Levy’s coverage seemed superficial and to identify points that seem incomplete or in error. Spencer (as cited in McCann, 2005) advocated that natural evolutionary processes moved from homogeneity to heterogeneity. An extensive study of his work leads to the conclusion that Spencer believed that social distinctions, particularly between racially diverse or the poor, increased, clarified, and solidified as the society evolved. As McCann develops his argument, an example of the conflict between economic theory and social development theory becomes clear. These are closely related fields, often presented in conflict with each other, when in fact they are linked and integral parts of each other.

66 Stone (2008) wrote about evolutionary theory. According to Stone the evolutionary process of culture in sociology is a fundamental part of the way forward that does not always get proper recognition due to the emphasis on economic and conflict theory. Stone’s basis for evolutionary theory for cultural development is related to the work of Charles Darwin and Emile Durkheim. Stone discussed “dual inheritance,” a theoretical concept that seeks to account for human “groupishness,” intelligence, language use, empathy, morality, and religion. Stone asserted that dual inheritance theory provides a “robust explanatory framework” for the study of the evolution of culture. Dual inheritance theory suggests that cultural inheritance is a distinct form apart from genetic inheritance. Stone pointed to Richard Dawkins and The Selfish Gene (as cited in Stone, 2008) for an explanation of cultural or social inheritance, suggesting that Dawkins’ theory creates a robust explanation for memetic inheritance. Dawkins developed the concept of the “meme” as a descriptor of social developmental characteristics much like a gene determines physical characteristics. The two types of inheritance together represent the duality Stone suggested. Stone demonstrated how group behavior such as a common set of morals will create a significant advantage for a group that has a large membership with high moral standards, over a group that does not. While this argument makes sense, Stone did not give enough information to support his contention. His paper is a hypothesis in need of further proof. Zafirovski (2005) wrote about tying classical sociological theory to the modern. He explored the concept of rationality and was motivated by knowledge that widely held views among economists and rational choice theorists were that classical sociology is irrational. Zafirovski uses examples from classical and post-classical sociological theory that question such claims. He writes that classical sociological theory is characterized by conceptual and

67 methodological pluralism, theoretical and empirical richness, treating rationality as a complex social phenomenon, differentiating economic and non-economic rationality, acknowledging the social character and foundation of economic rationality, and contrasting epistemological or scientific rationality and ontological or real-life irrationality, including the revelation of the irrationality of extreme economic rationality. This article showed an example of viewing the conflict that exists between sociologists and economists from the perspective of the sociologist. There is an ongoing discourse between economists and sociologists about the definition of human social activity. Economists are inclined to consider sociology a discipline within economics while sociologists are inclined to consider economics a discipline within sociology. Zafirovski proposed to bring some balance to this argument by demonstrating that classical sociology is rational. The arguments are more a function of differences in language than in understanding. The two disciplines think differently about things that are closely related, and have different definitions for like words used to describe phenomena in each discipline respectively. Classical sociologists defined rationality as “the logical laws of the human mind” or “human intellect” (Comte as cited in Zafirovski, 2005). Economists define rationality in microeconomics, as a theory of choice wherein the rational individual chooses between cost and benefit with intent to maximize value. These are two different definitions for the same word, and it seems that sociologists and economists, rather than recognize these differences, prefer to argue the differences as if one another were wrong. Robin Zebrowski (2008) presented a case for how those who professed that Herbert Spencer and John Dewey were somehow related in the sense that Dewey was influenced by Spencer, were incorrect. The work of the two authors cannot be reconciled, and while both

68 philosophers recognized a need to revise the education system and their respective theories proposed similar changes, while having the same objective, were different. Zebrowski reviews the similarities and differences, explaining how the findings of those authors who propose that Dewey is influenced by Spencer, have missed certain interpretation of facts that exist. Both authors proposed similar revisions to the education system. In summary, these authors provided evidence that they at least began with the findings of classical theorists for their research. Whether they agreed or not is a larger argument than the scope of this KAM. Several concurred with the classical research; others extend it with greater granularity and deeper findings. Still others while disagreeing with one classical philosopher or another, at a minimum recognize the work of the classical author in the process of refuting it. Generally the criticism around one set of theories or another occurred among the classical authors. Those classical arguments appear to be accepted in Modernity. While modern sociologists recognize the findings of classical theorists, there are fundamentally at least two opposing schools of thought; the first being those that follow theories such as those of Durkheim, Weber, and Marx, and the other being those following work such as that of Spencer and Darwin. The influences over Durkheim, Weber, and Marx in turn, can be traced back to the theories of Auguste Comte (1848/1865) while Spencer and Darwin’s theories are more recognized as having been most influenced by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. The difference is that Durkheim, Weber, and Marx were essentially economists and each one’s proposed theory suggested that societal development was predominantly a function of economic activity. In turn, Comte (1848/1865) wrote about “Positivism,” which theorized that societal development was a function of the sense of experience and positive verification. This latter interpretation is a

69 concept that could be traced back to ancient Greek philosophers and can be compared favorably with Parsons’ type of functionalism. When Durkheim, Weber, and Marx formulated their theories it included this sense of experiential positivism. Spencer and Darwin proposed respective versions of evolutionary theory. This theory is an expression that demonstrates Lamarckian thinking. Lamarck was an earlier proponent suggesting that “natural law” drove evolution. These two viewpoints represent fundamentally different sociological thinking, one giving more credibility to economics, rational thinking, and social experience as the driving force behind societal development, the other proposing that societal development is an outcome of the function of the evolutionary social experience. Those authors who supported their work with references to Spengler for his position on globalization are also noteworthy. It seems appropriate, since these authors lived and worked in an environment where the social state is at the level of globalization defined by Spengler, and their work was to test that aspect of social development. More importantly, it seemed that the concept of cyclical societal development was somehow perceived as a separate line of thought from the concepts of positivism or evolution. There seemed to be a parallelization within the field of societal development where researchers follow one of these three general theoretical bases, but tend not to recognize that the other theories could be influential simultaneously, in concert with each other. Instead of recognizing that evolution, cyclical development and decline, and positivistic fundamental social experience can work together simultaneously with each concept bringing its own contributions to a more general theory of societal development, researchers seem to focus exclusively on one or the other of these theories and minimalize, or ignore the others.

70 Modern Theorists vs. Classical Theory There are many more classical and modern theorists who have done significant work in societal and cultural development than are recognized here. While this work presents a fair cross section, it is not inclusive and cannot be conclusive about societal and cultural development. The researchers represented here were selected because their work is in areas less commonly considered in most modern conventional study; evolutionary, cyclical, and fundamentalist theory. The more common approach over the first half of the 20th century has been to emphasize economic and political development and conflict theory, and in the latter half to focus more on fundamental aspects of social interaction as driving development, with less regard to other forms of social growth, such as presented by Spencer, Spengler. Parsons, being considered the founder of the fundamentalist school, was a proponent of the study done during the latter half of the 20th century. Learning these alternative theories and considering them as part of the understanding of societal and cultural development broadens that understanding and drives out a more robust explanation as to how society progresses. Uhlmann, Pizzaro, and Bloom (2008) took a more psychological than sociological approach to their work. That being said, the authors discussed at length the influences of stereotypes and how they affect interaction within a social group. The article discussed the impact of both conscious and unconscious influences on judgment and behavior, and the mental states people experience as they interact socially. The authors developed a concept that the individual may unconsciously react to stimuli, resulting in unconscious behaviors. For example, the exposure to violent television programs might result in aggressive behavior. Uhlmann et al. pointed out that a behavior resulting from a reaction to social stimulus has a profound

71 implication for social judgment and behavior among such aspects as consumer choice, management behavior, anxiety and shyness (and by implication social participation), cooperation, self-esteem, health related behavior, career choice, sexual harassment, intellectual performance, moral judgment, phobias, and suicide. They concluded that understanding and demonstrating unconscious social cognition was difficult, the parameters of this state were not known, and more discussion is needed around it before conclusions can be drawn. Boudon’s (2008) work took a more psychosocial approach but had significant implications to the sociological development of societies. He proposed a new perspective on evolutionary theory by discounting Spencer and Hayek, using suggestions by Durkheim and Weber. Boudon classified the theories of Hayek, Dawkins, Wilson, Sperber, Runciman, Spencer, and Darwin as “mechanical.” He classified Durkheim and Weber as “rational.” Rational theory in this case suggested that moral evolution was the outcome of genuine innovation, not only of innovation more or less mechanically induced. Boudon’s distinction was that true innovation in rational theory was original creative thought whereas mechanical innovation is the adaption and modification of existing thought. Boudon’s work focused on rational models of evolution. From this Boudon proposed a programmatic theory of moral evolution. He insisted on the importance of ideas in social evolution, on the importance of innovation, on the distinction between genuine innovation and innovation induced by mechanism of adaptation to new circumstances, on the unpredictable nature of new ideas, on the fact that capital innovations can take the form of fuzzy programs, on the role of contingencies, on the fact that new ideas can reflect the realization of a program, that for example the notions of citizenship, of person, of right-to, belonged to a widely undefined program which have contributed to realizing progressively.

72 Kay et al. (2009) conducted a quantitative study of the phenomena that societal organization holds the status quo to be the best or most acceptable approach to interrelationship, status, and position, even if the status quo is inequitable, unfair, discriminatory, or otherwise abusive or destructive toward interpersonal relationships. The study found that this peculiar behavior in societies is true. This finding tended to validate Parsons’ contention that societal and cultural development occurs as a function of the interrelated activities that elements of the system undergo during its existence. This study is directly representative of the fact that such interrelated activity existed and tended to perpetuate itself when it did. People possess a motivation to defend their social systems (p. 422). The authors found the people were motivated to view the current status quo as the most desirable state of affairs. This was found consistently true “across a variety of domains; for example, political power, public policy, and women’s representation in politics and business. The study found clear evidence of a motivated bias to reconstrue the normative status quo (what is) as most desirable (what should be). If what is perceived by a few as inequitable, but by the general population as equitable, then is it inequitable? The work in psychosocial development by Lawrence Kohlberg (1984) suggested that the normal progression of individuals within a society is to grow beyond generally accepted behavior. Individuals progress through stages of maturity wherein they accede to a sense of social justice. At Kohlberg’s higher stages this sense of social justice becomes a matter of principle for the individual. While not all individuals reach the highest levels of Kohlberg’s stages of growth, some do. Those that do develop a sense of moral responsibility, that would not accept unfair treatment or behavior such as Kay et al. suggest, because it is the status quo within the society. If the behavior is truly inequitable at least

73 an open debate is warranted. The higher order individual may take issue with the status quo and in doing so become an example of higher order behavior that actually changes the status quo through leading by example. Does this help explain how and why discrimination and prejudice exist? Kay et al. demonstrate that even the people who are treated unfairly are inclined to accept that as appropriate behavior, and as it should be. At the same time Kohlberg shows that at least a minority within society will set an example of more equitable behavior and provide some sort of leadership that grows beyond what Kay et al. found. Gondermann (2007) reviewed Spencer’s description of evolutionary development, as well as his position on retrogressive social development. Spencer held that social development was a progressive ascent from rude and simple to civil and complex societies. While this may have been true, he was a Lamarckian in his understanding of organic evolution and held that the innate capacity of organisms to adapt, were driven at least in part by their physical characteristics, their innate ability to adapt. For example, he believed that a projecting jaw was characteristic of lower order human races and an outward appearance of …a comparative lack of intelligence in conformity with the law that organs develop in proportion as they are exercised, the jaws are relatively large where the demands made on them are great; and diminish in size as their functions become less numerous and less onerous, from the bushmen state upwards, there has been a gradual increase in the complexity of our appliances … thus that simultaneous protrusion of the brain and recession of the jaws … has continued during the advance of humanity from barbarism to civilization. (Spencer, 1912: II, 389, as cited in Gondermann) Based on this belief, Spencer (1972) felt that certain cultures or races could not develop as suggested in his general evolutionary theory. This is the essence of his retrogressive theory, that certain cultures will always remain primitive due to psychosocial, environmental, and physiological developmental capacity. In order to support this, Spencer established that societal

74 development at best worked toward homogeneity, but that class, cultural, and racial distinction would not allow a truly egalitarian society to develop. This thinking has been completely refuted and discredited in modern science. But that refutation does not negate the fact that societies do evolve. Gondermann showed how Spencer was discredited because of his discriminatory ideas and because his theories of social evolution did not concur with others such as Hegel and Nietzsche. However in reading these other theories, one realizes they also expressed a belief in social evolution similar to Spencer. Their general findings are just phrased differently. Huberman et al. (2004) began with an example of applied societal development having been used to define an understanding of certain aspects of social behavior. It started with recognition that individuals within society were motivated by reward then develops a concept that status within the social group among is among the rewards that motivate people. The authors demonstrated that the desire for status and prestige is a universal human characteristic. But the relative importance of status is defined by culture. This article simply tested group members singled out as winners, and the affect that a finding of being a winner had in two different circumstances. The test was a two stage game based on Tullock’s “rent seeking” formula where participants compete for an all-or-nothing payoff. The first stage, hypothesis 1, tested status recognition via an applause symbol that predicted that a positive intrinsic value in the first stage gave a significantly higher status. The second stage, hypothesis 2, tested the ranking of intrinsic value of status across different countries, which included Hong Kong, Turkey, the United States, Germany, and Sweden/Finland. The test found that status is uniformly respected as a reward, and that the finding remained relatively constant across cultures. Most of this article was devoted to explaining the research design and the conduct of the test, more than recognizing root causes or

75 underlying causal explanation of the findings. But the authors demonstrated an important characteristic in the control and motivation of a social group. Peart and Levy (2005) reviewed popular thinking in regards to egalitarian utilitarianism as it existed in the 19th century. Their research demonstrated how far societies have come as of their writing, as compared to 19th century thinking. They gave an example where in modern times, society routinely accepts birth control as a given individual right or preference. By comparison one of their example studies presented a case from 1877 where two individuals were successfully criminally prosecuted for advocating birth control. Peart and Levy’s purpose was to present the transition from cardinal to ordinal utility. During the 19th century there was much discussion around the concept of trying to measure the utility of happiness as proposed by Spencer. Peart and Levy showed how difficult that was, giving many of the arguments presented by different theorists of that earlier time and showing the conflicts between their respective positions. In doing this Peart and Levy demonstrated empirically that humans pursue status even when compared across cultures, but that the relative importance of status is influenced by crosscultural differences. In his article, Maguire (2006) questioned those who would link the application of violence and coercion to the responsibilities of government, treating government as an extrasocial or non-societal institution committed to implementation of certain moral outcomes. He used as a basis of his study, the work of Phillip Bobbit (as cited in Maguire) who saw the parliamentary version of the nation-state defeating fascism and communism, and failure in the ability of the state to use its core competence violence, to achieve objectives, and to be reduced to “the narrower, and more acceptable, area of providing security” (p. 293). Maquire recognized

76 that discussion about the role of the state, driven by more recent occurrences and changes in the relationship of the government with the governed, has changed the understanding of the role of government as an institution. This article questioned the linkage of state to an unquestionable expectation that they can use violence. Maguire built his case by developing the concept of violence as it was exercised throughout history as well as its various definitions, recognizing those thinkers who did not see the state as inherently violent but instead as an expression of societal needs, most importantly the security of rights in a diversity of forms. Marotta (2006) wrote to contribute to the revisionist literature about Chicago sociologist Robert E. Park (as cited in Marotta). Park’s work related theory on the “marginal man.” That concept refers to those members of society who are in the margins because of unusual circumstances as compared to the general population. This might include societal members such as mixed race individuals or couples and their children, ethnic, religious, or other discriminated minorities, and their relationships to a social theory of hybridity being discussed in sociology contemporary to Park’s time. This discussion continues into modern times with the work of Bulmar, Lal, Lindner, Lyman, Maines, Raushenbush and now adding Marotta. Park, working with his student Bryon Reuter, saw the marginal man as a new personality type that lived and shared intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two or more distinct peoples, the two cultures representing his combined heritage as a cultural hybrid, viewing his heritage from either culture as something distant, as a stranger might, to either background, or because of his marginalization is distant from the culture in which he lives. Parks examples included the mulatto, the Jew, and the Asian American. His observation was that these types of personalities are marginalized in comparison to the society within which they exist. Marotta saw Park’s work

77 as influenced by Spengler and others who in turn, held notions about the formulation of societies that included the modern megalopolis, and that class, cultural, and racial distinctions contributed to the cyclical evolution of societies. Marotta through Park concurred with Spengler in his view that “civilization signifies the end of the development of internal potential in a unified cultural style and the beginning of aimless, eclectic expansion and accumulation” (Swenson, as cited in Marotta). Spengler saw this aspect as the decline leading to a new social order. McCann (2005) focused on presenting a case for recognizing shortcomings in the work of Peart and Levy (as cited in McCann). His argument presented evolutionary development that has been occurring in societies since the time of 18th and 19th century philosophers and earlier. This is particularly evident regarding the second half of the 20th century. In describing how Mills and Spencer viewed racial discrimination over that time, and particularly the hybrid racial members of society, he exposed an occurring evolutionary process. While this was not his intent, the reader becomes aware of it as part of understanding the progress of Western society between the time of Adam Smith and the present. Runciman (2008) presented an argument that too much emphasis is given to Marx, Weber, and Durkheim in sociological analysis, and expresses the importance of additionally studying the other philosophers for a broader basis of understanding societal development. By restricting study to Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, the understanding of societal development is limited to the application of economic and conflict theory. Studying other classical philosophers significantly broadens and more comprehensively explains the growth, evolution, and turnover of societies. Runciman presented an analysis of general thinking about social sciences by classical philosophers and compared them to modern reality. He recognized that classical

78 theorists made certain assumptions that, while might have been valid at the time, have since been disproved by the modern societal circumstances. During the 19th and early 20th centuries science itself underwent a redefinition as scientists became more professional in their inquiries. Prior science had been a function of religious interpretation while the science of the modern classical period has become more objective and scientific. The change from the modern classical period to the time of Runciman’s writing is that science has recognized they cannot predict the future. The classical theorists first presupposition was that an underlying pattern could be defined that would predict a direction for future development. Runciman also suggested that classical philosophers were criticized for recognizing change and assuming that progress was the achievement of Western civilization. While he felt that criticism might have been fair, it fails to recognize that social change was occurring and that the classical philosophers recognized it. A second presupposition made by classical philosophers is that as investigators of societal direction, by their understanding of how societies worked, they could also tell others how they should live their lives. Modern sociologists have recognized that they cannot predict the future and are unable to presume to tell others how to live. Stone (2008) presented neo-Darwinians as seeking to explain human pro-social behavior by invoking kin and reciprocal altruism, principles more appropriate to non-human species. These behaviors do not address the most important elements of human behavior; social group identity and behavior, cognitive and behavioral plasticity, and capacity for social and cumulative cultural learning. Sociologists had been the most vocal critiques of evolutionary theory, because they generally could not conceive of super-organic or supernatural phenomena as part of an evolutionary explanation. Stone advocated evolutionary theory. He believed that resistance to

79 evolutionary thinking resulted from adhering to sound principles on one hand and certain inadequacies of evolutionary thinking on the other. Darwin recognized the role of group competition in natural selection. He observed that a high standard of morality might give a person modest advantage over others, but that “a number of such men in a tribe would give that tribe an immense advantage over other tribes.” Tribal instincts arose in the late Pleistocene era and from that, cumulative culture grew. Cumulative culture is a uniquely human characteristic that evolves in society. It is the basis of tribal social instincts. Stone demonstrated how different sociologists and philosophers held different views, and had conflicts between them for different explanations of social evolution. Neo-Darwinian sociologists have held differing views based on their respective understanding, developed from their study of earlier Darwinian theorists. These conflicts are resolvable using Stone’s suggested dual inheritance theory. Zafirovski (2005) compared sociology to economics. He specifically addressed the view held by economists that classical sociology is irrational and counters it with examples to demonstrate its rationality. “Rational” is a specific term and point of contention between economists and sociologists because the two different disciplines have differing definitions for the same term. Economists define the rational person as one who chooses among economic alternatives, that alternative which yields the most utility for that person’s need. The sociologist considers the rational person the one who considers truth to be intellectually deductive reasoning using non-sensory, non-emotional observance as the source of knowledge. Most economists and some sociologists (specifically, rational choice sociologists) claimed that rationality is poorly developed in sociology. Rational choice sociologists posited that sociology should adopt the economics concept for rationality. Zafirovski (2005) presented

80 an extensive analysis in an effort to demonstrate that classical social theorists were rational, but used the definition of rationality favored by sociologists rather than that held by economists. In doing this, he captured the essence of the conflict between economists and sociologists, wherein there are two different scientific disciplines with two different definitions for the same terminology, and neither willing to yield, compromise, or otherwise come to a mutually agreed definition. This argument has been going on for decades, and possibly centuries. More significantly, the terminology as used in each science is used correctly to express a real dynamic important to their respective theoretical and ideological underpinnings. But the two disciplines are unable to agree on a common terminology. Instead of recognizing the differences and driving to a mutually agreed definition, each discipline holds that they are right. As long as this type of dynamic exists, there will continue to be misunderstanding particularly around the application of economic and social theory together. Zebrowski (2008) pointed out that presuming that John Dewey’s work was based on Spencer’s theories is a position that cannot be reconciled between the two theorists, and cannot be supported by the facts that came from comparing these two philosophers. Recently, some educators have argued that Spencer is in reality the father of Dewey’s educational progressivism, but was not credited by Dewey because the concepts of Social Darwinism, a theory associated with Spencer, had fallen into disfavor. The reality is that Spencer and Dewey arrived at their conclusions about education reform independently. Each followed a different track to arrive at very similar solutions to what they saw as the problem in education. For that matter, what they saw as the problem was also independently defined but presented again, similar conclusions.

81 Some modern educators gave Spencer credit for the findings and proposed that Dewey’s conclusions were derived from Spencer’s work. This problem needed clarification, because it colors education reform differently. It is feasible to expect that modern day educators might consider Spencer’s positions valid driver’s of education theory. Spencer was a much broader based philosopher and conducted research in many areas. His work included in addition to education, the areas of sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, politics, and evolutionary process. He was an advocate of eugenics and conclusively believed that there were primitive races that were physically incapable of advanced social thought and behavior, such as practiced in western culture. In his day, he was considered a key, if not ultimate, authority in philosophy and all of the sciences. However, as science advanced and discredited biased opinion, other researchers offered more generalized and objective findings while Spencer lost favor in the scientific community. If educators were to accept Spencer’s positions as valid theory the conduct and structure of education processes today would be very different than they are. In fact, in a broader sense Spencer probably was not a generally good example for education reform. His discriminatory views weighed unfavorably on the whole concept of fairness, ability, and equality in education. Honoring those views mandates precluding entire segments of society as incapable, a position which itself has been invalidated. Spencer believed that primitive peoples were evolutionarily limited in their ability to learn and grow to the level of maturity and sophistication found in western society. If he had known of genetics then he would probably have claimed they were genetically inferior and incapable of learning the complex social interactions common in more sophisticated societies. In essence, he said exactly that without the reference to genetics.

82 In the larger sense Spencer’s work demonstrated the arrogance of western society, where western philosophers held that any society that was not as far “advanced” as the west, were backward and primitive. Spencer was a proponent of this position. However, in truth advanced society is a more subjective term than western philosophers allowed. By the definition of the western philosopher, China, a five thousand year old culture, Japan, a five thousand year old culture, India, a seven thousand year old culture, Egypt, a four thousand year old culture possibly derived from a much earlier culture that has been lost in the evolution of cyclical cultural change, India, a seven thousand year old culture, possibly derived from a 12,000 year old culture, Islam and its precursor Mesopotamia, a combined five thousand year old culture from which came the modern concepts of mathematics and science, are all primitive societies. Hopefully, through the forces of antidiscriminatory posturing and open society thinking, western society is moving away from a position where it believes it is the most advanced culture in the world, the world leader in societal development, because of its advances in technological development, and recognizes that western society is just one of the many societies in world history. There are other societies that, while not as technologically advanced, are more sociologically advanced. Their evolution may have been slower, occurring over longer periods of time and their focus on what is important may be different from the focus of western society. But those differences do not necessarily make them primitive. There does not seem to be any focus on combining theories where a comprehensive view of societal and cultural development is presented. Economists focus on economic progress as the driving force in society, political scientists focus on political interaction as the driving force, militarists focus on militarism, sociologists that focus on social interaction, psychologists focus

83 on the mental well being of individuals, medical practitioners focus on these others sciences only insomuch as necessary to influence medical outcomes, educators focus on education at the exclusion of other sciences except to recognize they must be taught or made feasible for practitioners to teach them, but there seems to be no emphasis on a comprehensive, consolidated theory or philosophy that provides a cross-pollinated picture of these and the other soft sciences, simultaneously showing how their combined influences on the general advancement of humanity, including societal and cultural development, occurs. Societal and cultural development is a more comprehensive and complex process than any one of these sciences give credit. It may be true that evolution happens as Spencer described it, while at the same time cyclical forces are occurring as Spengler has defined them. The steps and stages societies go through may well be fomented by functional occurrences as Parsons and his peers suggested, and these functional occurrences might come in fits and starts as proposed by Teggart, who suggested that abrupt crisis or occurrences that cause sudden radical change to happen at a point in time rather than as a transition, with society moving away from the crisis on a new track after resolving it. It seems that philosophers and other researchers in sociology do not address business groups or private organizations as social groups to be studied as are other social groups such as political organizations, educational systems, organized religions, government bureaucracies, militaries, or nation states. None of these authors addressed business or private organizations as a segment of society. The closest they come to it is to address economics as part of social development. Yet some business organizations are larger and more financially viable than sovereign countries, and are as subject to the same mechanics of growth, development, and

84 decline as any other societal segment. They interact as groups and individuals, exercising the concepts of social development in all of the complexity that societies do. Some of these organizations have international scope outside the control of any one government or social order. They cross boundaries as in international trade, and are autonomous. Some maintain subgroups such as their own bureaucracies, social groups, even security forces. For example the largest company in business is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has annual revenues greater than $400 billion, a market capitalization of over $201 billion, and employs approximately 2.1 million people. If Wal-Mart were a country it would be the 23rd largest in the world by GDP and 81st largest by population. Most Fortune 100 companies are larger than the smaller states of the world. There should be more emphasis on these kinds of organization and their contributions to and influence over global societal development. More importantly, these organizations have leadership groups just as societies do, and those leadership groups should be studied as to their influence on the socialization of their society. Throughout this study, while finding that societal and cultural development is given a rounded, comprehensive definition, shortcomings were also noted in how this definition addresses the complexity of today’s world order. We have not found where leadership has been considered as a segment of society. Even that segment normally perceived as leadership, the polity, is not studied as a leadership group within the larger society. Instead it is viewed more as just another segment within the social order. The following Application section presents a research design to address this aspect of societal and cultural development and particularly, the importance of leadership as a social group and subgroup of society.

APPLICATION SBSF 8131: PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND SOCIETAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Introduction The literature review in the Breadth and Depth sections of this document has produced reoccurring themes depicting the importance of sociological development in the science of societal and cultural development. The Breadth section reviewed several classical authors and established that there is refined, stable theory regarding sociological development, beyond those of economics and conflict. Within societal development there is an evolutionary process at work as defined by Spencer (1889, 1972), a cyclical progress of growth, maturation, and decline as defined by Spengler, (1966-70, 1967), and functionalistic processes as discussed in Parsons’ (1960, 1971) works. These foundational theorists are routinely referenced by modern sociologists and the earlier prognostications are used as starting points for modern research. But among the researchers covered in this document there is no apparent blending of the respective theories into on comprehensive model of development. Modern researchers began with the theories presented by classical theorists and developed a breadth and complexity of definition beyond the original findings of those earlier authors. These modern authors for the most part, developed classical theory into more complex and robust definitions of social development. For example, Boudon (2008) criticized the evolutionary process of social development. In doing so he sanctioned its existence. His criticism is more about what the theory lacks than about whether or not it is valid. Ben Dorfman (2005),

86 while recognizing evolutionary theory, broadened its underlying concepts in order to demonstrate that the affects of modern transportation and communications systems are causing a decline in national, regional, societal and cultural identity. We could review each researchers work and recognize a dynamic that somehow influences our understanding of societal and cultural development, but that has been done in the Depth section above and would be redundant. As a general statement, the direction of modern research in societal development suggests that the influence of nationalism, regionalism, and cultural heritage is declining in favor of independence and an international confluence of ideas. Globalization is happening, and the isolationistic tendencies of nationalism or regionalism are waning. For most of the 20th century the predominant theories were economic and conflict theories. In the latter half of the 20th century sociological study was based more on the functional impact of events and human characteristics as generalized influencers of social behavior. At the beginning of the 21st century there is a trend toward broadening this functionalist approach to include other concepts such as evolutionary and cyclical theories in combination, to more comprehensively the social progress that humanity has made and where it may be going in the future. While modern research is identifying a direction of societal development, they do not seem to address leadership issues as separate or significant influencers on the direction of development. Yet societal and cultural development is an important outcome of leadership. There are changes in societal evolution that were probably influentially directed by leadership. There are major changes that have occurred directly as a result of leadership influence or as a result of non-leadership resistance to that leadership activity. Entire societies have risen and fallen as a result of leadership activity and/or resistance and refusal to follow the guidance that

87 leadership provided. Without understanding the influences that leadership has had on directing the outcomes of societal and cultural development, the understanding of societal and cultural development is incomplete. Purpose of the Study This study will begin by developing an understanding about the importance of societal and cultural development theory to leadership and change management, and vice versa. The leadership assessment will establish a qualitative position about how leadership understands the importance of societal and cultural development, among both leadership figures as well as the non-leadership in society. this phase of the study will examine the general level of consensus among a cross section of leaders as to whether or not societal and cultural development are concepts of interest or importance to them, in the execution of leadership and change responsibilities. This understanding is expected to establish a hypothesis based on examining the data collected about trends in societal and cultural development and their impact on leadership performance. The non-leader assessment will evaluate the importance that those subject to leadership attach to societal and cultural developmental issues, and their position regarding how leadership considers these aspects of their well being. This phase of the study will examine data collected for trends and differences non-leaders hold as compared to leadership. Research Questions The following questions will be presented to a population containing both leadership and non-leadership members, in a survey. The responses will be tallied in an effort to deliver the estimates discussed above as the purpose of this study.

88 1. Do leadership figures consider societal and cultural development important in the execution of leadership duties and responsibilities? 2. How important are the aspects of societal and cultural development to leaders in execution of their leadership and change management responsibilities? 3. Do non-leaders consider societal and cultural development important in the execution of leadership duties and responsibilities? 4. How important are consideration for societal and cultural differences to non-leaders? 5. Is there a case for expanding the importance of societal and cultural development in the administration and execution of leadership activity within society at large? 6. Are you, in your career and/or day-to-day life, responsible for providing leadership or for obtaining results from activity? Instrumentation One instrument for data collection will be employed in this study; a survey. This instrument is by design, intended to provide a preliminary presentation of the understanding respective leadership and non-leadership members of the population hold in regards to societal and cultural development. These positions will in turn, provide a direction for more targeted research in what is truly important about societal and cultural development to both leadership and non-leadership members of society, respectively. Leadership Assessment Introduction According to Leedy and Ormrod (2001); “Research is a viable approach to a problem only when there are data to support it” (p. 94). At this juncture there is no clear research to

89 suggest that societal and cultural development is of concern to social leadership. Yet this fact seems intuitively obvious. Some leadership could not lead effectively without respect for societal and cultural development issues. Some leadership positions were created because of, and are in leadership over, activities of societal and cultural control. For example, the dynamics of racial discrimination have a direct impact on the outcome of leadership activity, especially in racially mixed groups. In another example, the current environment, where immigration reform is being pressed as an essential control, a direct affect on the requirements of leadership performance is inevitable. There are many societal and cultural developmental programs in leadership, such as sensitivity training or evaluation programs that include consideration for cultural aspects. These programs test the candidate’s cultural sensitivity and fitness characteristics that directly influence the behavior of leaders and in turn, the outcomes that come as a result of leadership. Yet the reviews done for the Breadth and Depth sections of this paper suggest that no direct links between leadership and societal and cultural development are recognized, as if leadership was a given, and not necessarily part of the research and analysis that was conducted. The objective of this Application would be to begin a determination of how critical societal development is to leadership thinking, and vice versa. Population and Sample The sample selected for this survey will include management and leadership individuals in various groups including government, public service, non-profit, and business organizations, for this purpose. A list of senior managers from businesses, civic, and non-profit organizations, including some members of government organizations, will be invited to participate. A list of faculty members from Walden University will also be solicited and added to this sample, in order

90 to insure inclusion of non-business oriented education leadership. The sample will be made aware of the survey and self-select to volunteer participation, by either receiving an email invitation, or by following an advertisement to participate in a public survey instrument. Participants will not be identified by anything more than the fact that they participated and by responding to a question in the survey that qualifies them as a member of leadership or not. A copy of the email to be sent to this sample is included at Appendix A. This email is worded to imply that the recipient is considered a part of the leadership of a society or social group, and suggest that they respond to the survey in that way. Coordination with the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance will be involved in an approval process before a sample for this approach is implemented. Non-Leadership Assessment Introduction As a general statement societal and cultural development should be a concern of most people in a population. However, because of how different segments of society approach their respective understanding of these criteria, they may have different positions regarding how they understand their own responsibility as well as the responsibilities of others. Non-leadership individuals may have very different viewpoints about their responsibility to the advancement of societal and cultural development and understanding than those of leadership individuals. For leadership, it is important to identify if this difference is significant, and if it is, what are the key factors that make up this difference? This begins with asking non-leadership members of society basically the same questions as are asked of leadership, and comparing the answers to see if such differences exist. The survey has been designed to enable this perspective of a general

91 understanding of leadership versus the non-leadership segments of society by having each segment identify themselves as leadership or non-leadership, then asking the same questions of each as to their understanding and position in regards to their responsibility towards societal and cultural development. Once a sample of society has been uniquely identified as leadership or non-leadership, the answers they give to the same questions should identify a comparative position. Then a comparative statistical analysis can be made, that could drive out further surveys and questions that ultimately lead to a clear understanding of the importance of societal and cultural development, the importance of these aspects of society to each segment, and where the conflicts between leaders and followers exist. Population and Sample The sample selected to represent non-leadership individuals will be a list of students randomly selected from among the student body at Walden University. These students will be invited at the same time as the leadership sample. This sample will be made aware of the survey and self-select to volunteer participation, either by receiving an email invitation or by following an advertisement to participate, in the same manner as the leadership sample. The differences in these invitations are that the non-leadership email is worded to suggest that the recipient respond as a non-leadership member of society. This is not meant to imply that these individuals are not leaders, but that for this purpose they should consider themselves such. A separate invitation has been developed the purposes of this survey, and is included at Appendix B. Again, this survey will be coordinated with the Office of Research and Integrity and Compliance at Walden University prior to its implementation.

92 General Survey Characteristics Survey Procedures All segments of the population will be emailed simultaneously, with an invitation to participate in a survey questioning their respective understandings of the importance of societal and cultural development in their respective capacity as a leader or non-leader in society. The survey will be conducted for a specific period of time only. An underlying test will be the percentage of responses received. A low response rate implies a low level of importance being attributed to societal and cultural development as a characteristic of organizational participation. A public, anonymous web-based survey will be posted at www.SurveyMonkey.com. The survey questions are as follows: 1. I have a responsibility for providing leadership? (yes/no) 2. Cultural development is an important consideration to the execution of my responsibilities? (yes/no) 3. On a scale of one to 10, with one being least important, how important is consideration for social and/or cultural differences in the execution of my responsibilities? ________ 4. On a scale of one to 10, with one being least important, in your opinion how important is consideration for social and/or cultural differences in the future of exercising your responsibilities? _____________ 5. Do you consider it important that society’s leadership provide for consideration of issues of societal and cultural development, in the execution of their responsibilities? (yes/no) 6. On a scale of one to 10, with one being least important, in your opinion how appropriate are these questions to the future exercise of your responsibilities? _____________

93 7. Please enter any comments you may like to add to improve the results of this survey: (allow a comment box) This survey is designed to include self-identification as a leader, and the remaining questions are based on the research questions above, structured to determine the respective respondent’s position in regards to the influences of societal and cultural development in leadership. Answers for those participants who identify themselves as leadership individuals will be evaluated in a qualitative assessment and whatever consensus this analysis shows to be fact can be used to summarize the importance of societal and cultural development in relation to the understanding of leadership and non-leadership responsibility. Ethical Issues McNamara (2007) identified five ethical considerations for survey research. Her advice is that surveys should allow for voluntary participation, do no harm to respondents, provide anonymity and confidentiality, identify the purpose and sponsor of the survey, and what analysis and reported will be done as a result of the survey. The purposes of these guidelines are to help eliminate ethical concerns. The survey to be conducted under this Application is configured to comply with these guidelines. Participation will be completely anonymous even to the identification of the participant who self identifies as a leader or follower. No individual or personal information is needed or will be collected. The emails planned to solicit participation will explicitly state the position of anonymity and confidentiality, identify the purpose of the survey, identify what results are expected from the survey, and how the results will be available. These are explained further in the following discussion.

94 Participation in this survey will be completely voluntary and anonymous. In order to achieve a high response rate, an appropriate invitation listing the purpose of the survey, the fact that it is anonymous, and a mechanism for obtaining the results of the survey for those participants who are interested, will be included. The email messages to be sent are included at Appendices A and B, and show how anonymity will be achieved. These invitations will be sent multiple times with a certain date closure included, and an availability date for obtaining results. SurveyMonkey.com provides a feature that does not allow a participant to participate more than once. Over a period of 30 days this invitation is expected to be sent up to five times. The analysis results will subsequently be posted at an anonymous internet website where an interested party can download them. The results will be left there indefinitely. Validity and Reliability Issues While this survey is expected to provide valid results, that is unknown until it is completed. If the participation is skewed toward leadership or non-leadership sample then a type one or type two errors may be possible regarding the lesser responding segment of the population. If this becomes apparent a larger sample will be developed and sent. Validity and reliability is a function of the breadth of participation from the intended population. The analysis will include estimates of reliability in the results. The questions are written in an intentionally vague manner, leaving room for interpretation in the mind of the respondent as they answer the questions. A comment box is included in the last question for respondents to pose comments about the survey. This should contribute to a more general and reliable result and broader participation.

95 Data Collection Participants of the study will be contacted by email, explaining the research objective and asking for participation. The objective is to obtain a high level test of the understanding among respondents as to how important consideration of societal and cultural development is in their respective day-to-day participation in society. The email will contain a link to the survey, and instructions as to how to obtain the results if desired, when they are completed. After completion of the analysis, a follow-up email will be sent announcing that the results are available, including a link to the results. Participants will also be able to reply to the invitation to participate, requesting that the results be sent to them, and this will be done. The survey will be conducted using SurveyMonkey.com, a survey website that offers a free survey tool. This website offers a paid version that includes the ability to filter and export results for statistical analysis, response tracking by email address, list management tools, Secure Socket Layer encryption for data protection, but these other features should be unnecessary and the free version data collection can be sufficient for the purpose of this survey. Variables and Measures The variables expected in the survey are summarized in the following Table 1. The variables consist of two independent variables and six dependent variables that group responses by category.

96 Table 1 Summary of Variables in Leadership and Non-leadership Survey __________________________________________________________________ Independent Variables Dependent Variables

__________________________________________________________________ Leadership respondent Non-leadership respondent Importance of cultural development level of importance of cultural development Future of importance of cultural development Importance of Leadership in cultural development Importance of this line of questioning __________________________________________________________________

Data Analysis Plan To begin with, descriptive statistics will be used to calculate the independent variables and summarize and describe the data collected. Survey results will be measured by each of the two categories. Each dependent variable applies to each independent variable. Descriptive statistics will in turn, be used to summarize and describe the data collected for each dependent variable, as it applies to each of the independent variables. From this analysis, a summation can be made as to the importance of societal and cultural development to each of the independent samples within the population, respectively.

97 Conclusion Throughout modern sociological history and the study of societal and cultural development, leadership seems to have been neglected as a group influencing the outcomes of societal and cultural growth. This may or may not have been by design. It might just be an oversight on the part of researchers, or a function of a fact that leadership is so deeply embedded in societal activity, that it has just never been recognized as a unique influencer, apart from the more general depictions of social order. In any event there is apparently no clear depiction of the influence and impact of leadership in the evolution of societal and cultural development. Yet this group, this subclass of citizenry, as the group most responsible controlling the interaction that steers social direction, is possibly the foremost most significant influence of social and cultural development. This provides an opportunity to study the importance of leadership and their contribution to societal development. This Application is intended to produce a qualitative, high level evaluation of an opinion about the importance of leadership to societal and cultural development from both leaders and followers. The outcome of this Application should present a fair estimate of whether leadership considers societal and cultural development important to the execution of leadership activity, and whether followers feel the same or differently about this importance. These outcomes should produce a direction for future work to determine the importance of societal and cultural development in the processes of leadership and change.

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Appendix A

Appendix B